1226 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA -~ 28 
this problem entirely in my previously writings. I have here for 
distribution some big mimeographed sheets which show a work we 
have been doing at the Oslo Institute of Economics, on the principles 
of how to study the interrelations between three countries. This job 
was done primarily by a Swedish economist, Mr. Tom Kronsjo, who 
has been working with us for quite some time. He uses my system 
of notation. 
If any of you are particularly interested, I have a few more copies 
for distribution. 
Prof. MAHALANOBIS, I must excuse myself if I have not got your 
point quite straight. There is quite a distance along this table and 
nisunderstandings may arise. As I understood it your first point 
was this: the politician will not be able to understand a scientific 
question. My answer is: of course he will not. If you put up to him 
a description of some 450 dependent variables and 31 degrees of 
freedom he will be entirely lost. But I don’t suggest that you are 
:o put up to him such a system. You should only put up to him 
very simple questions, one at a time. That is the basis of the inter- 
viewing technique. I am absolutely certain that if you can have a 
quite and not too rushed conversation with the policy maker, being 
careful that he understands your questions correctly then very 
meaningful results will emerge. I am not stating a theoretical 
hypothesis, but basing my opinion on actual conversations with 
leading politicians including the Chief of Prof. MAHALANOBIS’ 
country. 
Prof. Arirais spoke about the difficulties of constructing a pre- 
ference function. 
His main point here was that we have many different preference 
functions, the preference function of different groups, oi different 
persons and so on. Of course we have, I have, for instance, found 
in my interviewing of high-ranking officials that the Minister of Agri- 
culture will have different preferences from the Minister of Education 
or the Minister of Industry. Similarly there will be differences bet- 
ween regions of the country and, perhaps even more important, dif- 
erences of opinion of what should be done in a group of countries 
17] Frisch - pag. 30