TOWARD A VERDICT ON MACROECONOMIC
SIMULTANEOUS EQUATIONS

HERMAN O.A. WOLD
Universitetets Statistiska Institution - Uppsala - Sverige

INTRODUCTORY

[t is now 25 years since JAN TINBERGEN launched his
pioneering macroeconomic models for the NETHERLANDS (1937),
US (1939) and UK (1951). His approach marks a bold raise
of aspirations levels, in economic thinking as well as in the
statistical techniques of fact-finding and analysis, and above
all in the systematic coordination of theoretical and empirical
approaches. If we think of the allembracing sectors of economic
 life and the huge complex of static or dynamic interrelations
 that the model builder sets out to master, the dimensions
 of his task bring to mind LAPLACE’s fathom who could
forecast in detail the future course of events in the entire universe
 by solving an enormous system of differential equations.
It adds to the greatness of TINBERGEN’s work that large masses
of economic-statistical data had gradually accumulated, that
the young discipline of econometrics was in the starting holes
for vigorous advances, and that it did not tarry long until his
approach, now known as causal chain systems, was followed
by other keen innovations, in the first line input-output analysis
(LEONTIEF, 1041) and interdependent systems (HAAVELMO,

2] Wold - pag.