Ragnar Frisch's Axiomatic Approach in Econometrics

International audienceRagnar Frisch's concept of econometrics was broader in scope than the more restricted connotation it has today as a sub-discipline of economics, it may be more properly rendered as a reconstruction of economics along principles inspired and drawn from natural sciences. In this reconstruction an axiomatic approach played a key role. In his 1926 essay, Sur un problème d'économie pure, Frisch set out what may have been the first axiomatic approach towards modelling consumer behaviour. Frisch's axiomatic approach was driven by two ambitions. The general aim was to argue in favour of using axiomatics as a basis for theorizing in economics, not least for the modelling of individual behaviour. A more specific ambition was to provide a basis for a quantitative notion of marginal utility. In 1933 Frisch presented an extended set of axioms for quantifying utility in a lecture series in Paris. The lecture series was supposed to be published, but Frisch failed to submit a final version of the manuscript and the lectures were never published. The set of axioms has been retrieved from Frisch's archival remains and is presented here for the first time. Frisch returned yet another time to the same topic when he attended a research conference at Cowles Commission in 1937. He presented then a more general choice-field theory, the core of which was a system of axioms for individual behaviour, published only as a (long) abstract. After this latter attempt Frisch's interest in explicitly axiomatization seem to have waned, although his promotion of axiomatics in economics is related to other methodological innovations that he promoted, such as the use of structural equations for modelling micro-and macroeconomic systems, and the use of structured interviews as a source of information when passive observations fail to provide a basis for estimating relationships. As a national accounting pioneer Frisch also argued for an axiomatic approach towards national accounting