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 interviewing
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 preference
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 Agriculture
will have different preferences from the Minister of Education
or the Minister of Industry. Similarly there will be differences between
regions of the country and, perhaps even more important, diferences
of opinion of what should be done in a group of countries
17] Frisch - pag. 30
