Marcel Boumans
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 951871 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Marcel Boumans |
| PRENOMES | Marcel |
| SOBRENOME | Boumans |
| ASSINATURA | BOUMANS M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8717-8148 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 40 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 60 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 40 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1993 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
One size does not fit all - mapping informal and formal professional development activities of vocational teachers
Vocational teachers continuously tailor their teaching to changes in occupational practice, technologies, and student diversity.Teacher professional development is crucial for dealing with these changes.A longitudinal study was conducted to study the professional development activities of vocational teachers in the Netherlands.It resulted in a typology of formal and informal professional development activities.This typology consolidates preceding…
Managing Growth in Miniature
In the mid-twentieth century, the nature of economic reasoning underwent a dramatic change: Worldly problems and issues were addressed by unworldly mathematical objects called models.How reasoning with such objects became the dominant practice in economics, that is, its epistemic standard and disciplinary language, is excellently illuminated by Verena Halsmayer's Managing Growth in Miniature.She shows how Solow's didactic device became the paradi…
Times of Change
A personal account of their experiences by Marcel Boumans and Evelyn Forget as JHET editors of issues 31 (1) to 35 (4)
Analysis without Theory
This article shows that Friedman's experiences with the research conducted at the Statistical Research Group (SRG) significantly shaped his 1953 methodology. These experiences gave him the ideas for a methodology for statistical analysis when dealing with "lousy data," that is, when the conditions under which they are generated are not clear, when the data are "uncontrolled experiences." Two views emerged from his SRG work. One is his view on the…
Hes Presidential Address
I wrote this address during the first weeks of the murderous and devastating invasion of Russia in Ukraine, in a fluctuating mood of anger and sadness. My aim was addressing the issue of the use of history to legitimize ideology, and I was contemplating how I could convince you of the urgency of this issue, and then this war broke out
The Computerization of Economics
In 1994, the Journal of Economic Perspectives published an article by William Goffe titled “Computer Network Resources for Economists”, starting with the statement: “[t]he Internet, the large and very rapidly expanding computer network, is revolutionizing research” (Goffe, 1994, 97). Goffe’s article aimed at providing the first “guide” for economists to understand the principles and mechanisms behind the functioning of the Internet, and it showca…
Materials selection in economic modeling
Templates travel because they offer a tractable format that can be used for model-building in a variety of domains. It is often because of this quality that a particular template is chosen. But one cannot assume that there are always templates ready to model a new phenomenon, and moreover, templates have also been designed at some point. A critical aspect of this designing process is the choice of the mathematical objects with which one hopes to …
Do you see it this way? Visualising as a tool of sense-making
Observing business cycles' is a figurative expression.What we actually see are tables of figures or charts that purport to show in standardized symbols one among several species of changes found in time series, which are themselves bleak numerical records of certain mass activities.These series give many glimpses of our cycles, but none of them gives a well rounded view.The changes on which we focus attention never occur by themselves in the way …
The Matter of Facts
Considering the current discussions about the difference between fact and fake, The Matter of Facts is a highly relevant attempt to capture "everything you always wanted to know about science but were afraid to ask." Its twenty-five chapters discuss scientific evidence from various perspectives, ranging from philosophy of science to the dynamics of flaws and fraud. It does not attempt to provide an overall account, because such an account could n…
Modelwork
Shaping the Phenomena
L’expression actuelle « aplatir la courbe » présente des similitudes avec la politique macroéconomique du milieu du xx e siècle, que l’on peut à juste titre qualifier de « phénomène macroscopique ». Dans la mesure où ces similitudes existent, l’analyse historique-épistémologique de ce type de politique macroéconomique peut nous permettre de mieux comprendre les conditions préalables à l’efficacité de la politique actuelle d’aplatissement de la co…
Flattening the curve is flattening the complexity of covid-19
Since the February 2020 publication of the article 'Flattening the curve' in The Economist, political leaders worldwide have used this expression to legitimize the introduction of social distancing measures in fighting Covid-19. In fact, this expression represents a complex combination of three components: the shape of the epidemic curve, the social distancing measures and the reproduction number [Formula: see text]. Each component has its own hi…
Exploring the History of Statistical Inference in Economics
Pictorial Statistics
This essay discusses Francis Galton's method of inductive inference where the data are photographs of human faces. His aim of induction was to determine the typical characteristics of the natural class to which the individuals belong by composing the relevant photographs in a specific photographic way. The three populations studied by Galton were people suffering tuberculosis, Jews, and criminals. This essay argues that despite the fact that Galt…
Visualizing Ignorance
The Bank of England fan chart of inflation visualizes the uncertainty of the bank’s inflation projections. Visualization is a way to tame uncertainty, in the sense that uncertainty is brought under the measure of a probabilistic distribution, in this case a (two-piece) normal distribution. As such, taming is a process of homogenization, that is, a process of translating various heterogeneous items into a common medium. In this case, the common me…
The Engineering Tools That Shaped the Rational Expectations Revolution
The rational expectations revolution was not based only on the introduction of Muth's idea of rational expectations to macroeconomics; this introduction alone cannot explain the more drastic changes to the mathematical toolbox, concepts, and research strategies since the 1980s. The shift from "Keynesian economics" to "new classical economics" is based on a shift from a control engineering approach to an information engineering methodology. This "…
Survey of Recent Work in the History of Econometrics
This survey is a witness report of what is happening in the community of historians of econometrics. This survey is a follow-up of an earlier survey which investigated who was active in the history of econometrics. The conclusion of the earlier survey was that interest in the history of econometrics has arisen primarily from within econometrics itself and that its stories have been written mainly by econometricians. The conclusion of the current …
The History of Macroeconometric Modeling
In the past two decades some of the history of economics turned from histories of economic ideas or economic thought, focusing on the study of “theories” and “schools of thought”, to histories of, for example, epistemic mediators such as “models”, “experiments”, “measurements”, and “observations.” The articles in this special issue show that a change of perspective in historical analysis toward the practice of macroeconometric modeling will enric…
"Models, Measurement, and "Universal Patterns
Development economics in the 1950s and 1960s, as Jan Tinbergen and Irma Adelman saw it, was a “groping in the dark.” Besides the limited knowledge of dynamic mechanisms, the lack of data was a severe problem for any attempt at modeling, whether macroeconomic, input-output, or in the tradition of national income accounting. As concerns the three main figures of this article—the empirical researchers Tinbergen, Hollis Chenery, and Adelman—each deve…
Methodological institutionalism as a transformation of structural econometrics
I agree with Nell and Errouaki that an econometrics based on neoclassical economic theory fails to develop any insight into deep structures. But my methodology differs slightly from theirs because of my view that an econometrics based on any economic theory would fail in this sense. Economics is an inexact science, incapable of providing a complete set of causal factors to explain any economic phenomenon. I arrive at a different call for more fie…
Graph-based inductive reasoning
Science Outside the Laboratory
Measurement is the assignment of numbers to objects or events according to a rule. The rule should be such that the numbers provide reliable information about the objects or events. But the rules applicable in the field are different from the rules used in the laboratory. Methodologies appropriate for field measurement have to include instructions of how to replace control of the measurand and environment by control of the representing model, and…
The Universe in Zero Words
Haavelmo's Epistemology for an Inexact Science
The first two chapters of Trygve Haavelmo's Probability Approach provide a very rich epistemological framework for understanding what is involved in finding laws outside the laboratory. Even though these laws will be inexact, a framework was developed to specify for which conditions laws could be found. Therefore, Haavelmo defined two different kinds of influences, potential and factual influences. To decide whether a regression equation represen…
The Rhetoric of Error from Locke to Kleist
There exists no theory of error, or any systematic account of it, and there never will be one due to the very nature of error. The Rhetoric of Error opens with the same “stern warning” as the entry
Science Outside the Laboratory
Measurement is the assignment of numbers to objects or events according to a rule. The rule should be such that the numbers provide reliable information about the objects or events. But the rules applicable in the field are different from the rules used in the laboratory. Methodologies appropriate for field measurement have to include instructions of how to replace control of the measurand and environment by control of the representing model, and…
The History of Macroeconometric Modeling
In the past two decades some of the history of economics turned from histories of economic ideas or economic thought, focusing on the study of “theories” and “schools of thought”, to histories of, for example, epistemic mediators such as “models”, “experiments”, “measurements”, and “observations.” The articles in this special issue show that a change of perspective in historical analysis toward the practice of macroeconometric modeling will enric…
Exploring the History of Statistical Inference in Economics
Measurement Outside the Laboratory
The kinds of models discussed in this paper function as measuring instruments. We will concentrate on two necessary steps for measurement: (1) one should search for a mathematical representation of the phenomenon; (2) this representation about the phenomenon should cover an invariant relationship between properties of the phenomenon to be measured and observable associated attributes of a measuring instrument. Therefore, the measuring instrument …
Fisher's Instrumental Approach to Index Numbers
Research Article| December 01 2001 Fisher's Instrumental Approach to Index Numbers Marcel Boumans Marcel Boumans Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2001) 33 (Suppl_1): 313–344. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-33-Suppl_1-313 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions…
Survey of Recent Work in the History of Econometrics
This survey is a witness report of what is happening in the community of historians of econometrics. This survey is a follow-up of an earlier survey which investigated who was active in the history of econometrics. The conclusion of the earlier survey was that interest in the history of econometrics has arisen primarily from within econometrics itself and that its stories have been written mainly by econometricians. The conclusion of the current …
Haavelmo's Epistemology for an Inexact Science
The first two chapters of Trygve Haavelmo's Probability Approach provide a very rich epistemological framework for understanding what is involved in finding laws outside the laboratory. Even though these laws will be inexact, a framework was developed to specify for which conditions laws could be found. Therefore, Haavelmo defined two different kinds of influences, potential and factual influences. To decide whether a regression equation represen…
The Problem of Passive Observation
Trygve Haavelmo's methodological manifesto "The Probability Approach in Econometrics" not only laid down the paradigm for the research pursued at the Cowles Commission, but also sets out a strategy for measurement outside the laboratory. His conceptualization of "passive observation" is still very useful for understanding measurements where intervention is not possible.Haavelmo's classic is very rich: it provided the framework for introducing pro…
Flattening the curve is flattening the complexity of covid-19
Since the February 2020 publication of the article 'Flattening the curve' in The Economist, political leaders worldwide have used this expression to legitimize the introduction of social distancing measures in fighting Covid-19. In fact, this expression represents a complex combination of three components: the shape of the epidemic curve, the social distancing measures and the reproduction number [Formula: see text]. Each component has its own hi…
Methodological institutionalism as a transformation of structural econometrics
I agree with Nell and Errouaki that an econometrics based on neoclassical economic theory fails to develop any insight into deep structures. But my methodology differs slightly from theirs because of my view that an econometrics based on any economic theory would fail in this sense. Economics is an inexact science, incapable of providing a complete set of causal factors to explain any economic phenomenon. I arrive at a different call for more fie…
Graph-based inductive reasoning
A History of the Histories of Econometrics
Econometricians have from the start considered historical knowledge of their own discipline as reflexive knowledge useful for delineating their discipline, that is, for setting its disciplinary boundaries with respect to its aims, its methods, and its scientific values. As such, the histories written by econometricians reflect the scientific image of their discipline in a given period. Each image of a period is drawn by denominating forerunners a…
How to Design Galilean Fall Experiments in Economics
In the social sciences we hardly can create laboratory conditions, we only can try to find out which kinds of experiments Nature has carried out. Knowledge about Nature's designs can be used to infer conditions for reliable predictions. This problem was explicitly dealt with in Haavelmo's (1944) discussion of autonomous relationships, Friedman's (1953) as-if methodology, and Simon's (1961) discussions of nearly-decomposable systems. All three acc…
Lucas and Artificial Worlds
Research Article| January 01 1997 Lucas and Artificial Worlds Marcel Boumans Marcel Boumans Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (1997) 29 (suppl_1): 63–90. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-1997-suppl_1005 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Marcel Boumans; Lucas and Artificial Worlds. History of Political Economy 1 January 1997; 29 (suppl_1): 63–90. doi: http…
"Models, Measurement, and "Universal Patterns
Development economics in the 1950s and 1960s, as Jan Tinbergen and Irma Adelman saw it, was a “groping in the dark.” Besides the limited knowledge of dynamic mechanisms, the lack of data was a severe problem for any attempt at modeling, whether macroeconomic, input-output, or in the tradition of national income accounting. As concerns the three main figures of this article—the empirical researchers Tinbergen, Hollis Chenery, and Adelman—each deve…
Paul Ehrenfest and Jan Tinbergen
A case of physics transfer in which two physicists, Jan Tinbergen and Paul Ehrenfest, got interested in economics and tried to use their background in physics to comprehend it. It was, however, not the energy metaphor that guided them, but an analogy in formalism
Paul Ehrenfest and Jan Tinbergen
A case of physics transfer in which two physicists, Jan Tinbergen and Paul Ehrenfest, got interested in economics and tried to use their background in physics to comprehend it. It was, however, not the energy metaphor that guided them, but an analogy in formalism
Lucas and Artificial Worlds
Research Article| January 01 1997 Lucas and Artificial Worlds Marcel Boumans Marcel Boumans Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (1997) 29 (suppl_1): 63–90. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-1997-suppl_1005 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Marcel Boumans; Lucas and Artificial Worlds. History of Political Economy 1 January 1997; 29 (suppl_1): 63–90. doi: http…
British Society for the History of Science. Report of Council for the year 1996
Objects The primary objective for which the Society is established is to promote and further the study of the history and philosophy of science. Secondary objectives include the provision of facilities, the arrangement of meetings, the promotion of research and the publishing of papers; full details of all the objectives may be found in the Society's Memorandum of Association . Policies The main policy of the Society is to provide the infrastruct…
Fisher's Instrumental Approach to Index Numbers
Research Article| December 01 2001 Fisher's Instrumental Approach to Index Numbers Marcel Boumans Marcel Boumans Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2001) 33 (Suppl_1): 313–344. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-33-Suppl_1-313 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions…
How to Design Galilean Fall Experiments in Economics
In the social sciences we hardly can create laboratory conditions, we only can try to find out which kinds of experiments Nature has carried out. Knowledge about Nature's designs can be used to infer conditions for reliable predictions. This problem was explicitly dealt with in Haavelmo's (1944) discussion of autonomous relationships, Friedman's (1953) as-if methodology, and Simon's (1961) discussions of nearly-decomposable systems. All three acc…
Causality in Macroeconomics
Book Review| September 01 2003 Causality in Macroeconomics By Kevin D. Hoover. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xiii; 311 pp. Cloth $70.00; paper $25.00. Marcel Boumans Marcel Boumans Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2003) 35 (3): 564–566. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-35-3-564 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ma…
Measurement Outside the Laboratory
The kinds of models discussed in this paper function as measuring instruments. We will concentrate on two necessary steps for measurement: (1) one should search for a mathematical representation of the phenomenon; (2) this representation about the phenomenon should cover an invariant relationship between properties of the phenomenon to be measured and observable associated attributes of a measuring instrument. Therefore, the measuring instrument …
Econometrics and the Philosophy of Economics
Dynamizing Stability
This article aims to show the mathematical contexts out of which emerged Solow's 1957 article "Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function." In particular, it seeks to provide some understanding of its most striking feature, namely, the highly aggregate level on which technical change is discussed and the simple way in which it is represented. The approach is similar to Weintraub's (1991) contextualization of Samuelson's Foundations of…
The Problem of Passive Observation
Trygve Haavelmo's methodological manifesto "The Probability Approach in Econometrics" not only laid down the paradigm for the research pursued at the Cowles Commission, but also sets out a strategy for measurement outside the laboratory. His conceptualization of "passive observation" is still very useful for understanding measurements where intervention is not possible.Haavelmo's classic is very rich: it provided the framework for introducing pro…
The two-model problem in rational decision making
A model of a decision problem frames that problem in three dimensions: sample space, target probability and information structure. Each specific model imposes a specific rational decision. As a result, different models may impose different, even contradictory, rational decisions, creating choice 'anomalies' and 'paradoxes'. So, decision making in real-life situations is different from decision making in an experiment. An experiment is a designed …
A History of the Histories of Econometrics
Econometricians have from the start considered historical knowledge of their own discipline as reflexive knowledge useful for delineating their discipline, that is, for setting its disciplinary boundaries with respect to its aims, its methods, and its scientific values. As such, the histories written by econometricians reflect the scientific image of their discipline in a given period. Each image of a period is drawn by denominating forerunners a…
Epsa Philosophy of Science
A Nobel Prize for Empirical Macroeconomics
This paper provides an assessment of the contributions of the 2011 Nobel Prize winners, Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims. They received the prize ‘for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy’. The paper illustrates that Sargent entertained different interpretations of rational expectations during distinct phases of his research. And it shows that Sims shifted the focus from theoretical identification restrictions to id…
Observations in a Hostile Environment
This article provides a history of the treatment of observational errors where conditions cannot be controlled to reduce inaccuracies, more specific, a history of the discussion of errors in social statistics. The main focus is on Oskar Morgenstern's atypical position in this discussion. In contrast to his contemporary social statisticians, Morgenstern took the natural science approach as the ideal standard for dealing with errors. His position, …
Haavelmo's Epistemology for an Inexact Science
The first two chapters of Trygve Haavelmo's Probability Approach provide a very rich epistemological framework for understanding what is involved in finding laws outside the laboratory. Even though these laws will be inexact, a framework was developed to specify for which conditions laws could be found. Therefore, Haavelmo defined two different kinds of influences, potential and factual influences. To decide whether a regression equation represen…
The Rhetoric of Error from Locke to Kleist
There exists no theory of error, or any systematic account of it, and there never will be one due to the very nature of error. The Rhetoric of Error opens with the same “stern warning” as the entry
Science Outside the Laboratory
Measurement is the assignment of numbers to objects or events according to a rule. The rule should be such that the numbers provide reliable information about the objects or events. But the rules applicable in the field are different from the rules used in the laboratory. Methodologies appropriate for field measurement have to include instructions of how to replace control of the measurand and environment by control of the representing model, and…
The Universe in Zero Words
Methodological institutionalism as a transformation of structural econometrics
I agree with Nell and Errouaki that an econometrics based on neoclassical economic theory fails to develop any insight into deep structures. But my methodology differs slightly from theirs because of my view that an econometrics based on any economic theory would fail in this sense. Economics is an inexact science, incapable of providing a complete set of causal factors to explain any economic phenomenon. I arrive at a different call for more fie…
Graph-based inductive reasoning
"Models, Measurement, and "Universal Patterns
Development economics in the 1950s and 1960s, as Jan Tinbergen and Irma Adelman saw it, was a “groping in the dark.” Besides the limited knowledge of dynamic mechanisms, the lack of data was a severe problem for any attempt at modeling, whether macroeconomic, input-output, or in the tradition of national income accounting. As concerns the three main figures of this article—the empirical researchers Tinbergen, Hollis Chenery, and Adelman—each deve…
Survey of Recent Work in the History of Econometrics
This survey is a witness report of what is happening in the community of historians of econometrics. This survey is a follow-up of an earlier survey which investigated who was active in the history of econometrics. The conclusion of the earlier survey was that interest in the history of econometrics has arisen primarily from within econometrics itself and that its stories have been written mainly by econometricians. The conclusion of the current …
The History of Macroeconometric Modeling
In the past two decades some of the history of economics turned from histories of economic ideas or economic thought, focusing on the study of “theories” and “schools of thought”, to histories of, for example, epistemic mediators such as “models”, “experiments”, “measurements”, and “observations.” The articles in this special issue show that a change of perspective in historical analysis toward the practice of macroeconometric modeling will enric…
Visualizing Ignorance
The Bank of England fan chart of inflation visualizes the uncertainty of the bank’s inflation projections. Visualization is a way to tame uncertainty, in the sense that uncertainty is brought under the measure of a probabilistic distribution, in this case a (two-piece) normal distribution. As such, taming is a process of homogenization, that is, a process of translating various heterogeneous items into a common medium. In this case, the common me…
Computer Science (22 obras) · Epistemology (17 obras) · Economic Theory and Institutions (16 obras) · Economics (16 obras) · Philosophy (16 obras) · Mathematics (14 obras) · Political science (13 obras) · Law (12 obras) · Philosophy (12 obras) · Mathematical economics (11 obras)