Seeking Parts, Looking for Wholes

History of Observation in Economics, Working Paper No. 1

56 Pages Posted: 30 Oct 2009

See all articles by Mary S. Morgan

Mary S. Morgan

London School of Economics; University of Amsterdam

Date Written: March 5, 2009

Abstract

The founders of national income accounting in the mid-twentieth century conceived their methods as relevant for “developed” economies and were not initially convinced that such an accounting framework would be useful to measure countries that were “less developed”. The difficulties posed by a lack of statistics were such that a cadre of young economists were sent to make observations in the field. Three such episodes - in colonial and post-colonial Africa - show that the problem was not so much lack of data, as lack of fit. Observations on African economic life either had to be made to fit existing definitions (in the national income accounting rule book), or the definitions had to be changed to fit economic life as it was found. Only then could reliable measurements could be recorded from those observations: measurements of the whole depended upon observing the parts.

Keywords: observation, measurement, national income accounting

JEL Classification: B20, C82, N17

Suggested Citation

Morgan, Mary S., Seeking Parts, Looking for Wholes (March 5, 2009). History of Observation in Economics, Working Paper No. 1, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1496882 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1496882

Mary S. Morgan (Contact Author)

London School of Economics ( email )

Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

University of Amsterdam

Spui 21
Amsterdam, 1018 WB
Netherlands

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