Economics focus

摘要

Once, a beautiful turn of phrase would take you a long way in economics. From Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes, economists were content to put their theories and ideas into (mostly) English prose, and leave it at that. Their big, breezy thoughts made great, but imprecise reading. Contradictions were glossed over. So prolix was Keynes, for example, that he is thought to have said everything at least once. This will no longer do. Since 1945 or so, practitioners of what was once called "political economy" have become more demanding. They sought to test their grand thoughts against the hard facts of the real world. Incomes, interest rates, and prices of all sorts could be measured. Did they behave as theory supposed? National accounts, the detailed measures of GDP, were just being created, at Keynes's behest. But economic data were, and still are, messy; analysing them even more so. It took decades to develop the tools to detect and measure economic relationships with much certainty.