Microeconometrics: measurement matters

In 1932, the Cowles Commission was founded, taking Lord Kelvin’s maxim Science is Measurement as its motto. What and who is measured and the quality of measurement crucially affect microeconometric identification, estimation and inference.

There is increasingly scope for making new progress in economic science by designing and implementing sharper measurement instruments to capture the reasoning, reacting and perhaps optimising behaviour of consumers, firms, and organisations.

75 years on, this conference marked cemmap’s evolution into a national Research Centre, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

The event explored the interrelationships between measurement, microeconometric methods and practice and knowledge of economic processes, through themed half-day sessions on: measurement of expectations, partial identification, measurement error as well as general aspects of microeconometric estimation and inference.

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Science is Measurement

Image: ‘Science is measurement’, 1879-1880. Engraving by C Butterworth after Henry Stacy Marks RA of a scientist armed with a tape measure ready to examine the skeleton of a large bird