12.1 Motivation

My aim in this final chapter is to formalize in a detailed way Spanos’ (1986) econometric methodological doctrine from the point of view of svt. As we shall see, SVT provides a very natural reconstruction of the doctrine, one that inte­grates the doctrine in a general methodological and philosophical framework.

One approach which to my knowledge has been completely ignored is the integration of economic methodology and philosophy with econometrics. Methodologists have generally skirted the issue of methodological founda­tions of econometric theory, and the few econometricians who have addressed the philosophical issues have seldom gone beyond gratuitous ref­erences to such figures as Feigel and Carnap.

(Caldwell 1984: 216)

In a paper published in 2000, George C. Davis points out that

Since 1982, the interest in economic methodology has increased but most methodologists have focused on the larger methodological issues, such as the scientific status or realism of economics, rather than the ‘methodological foundations’ of econometrics. Similarly, most econometricians addressing ‘the philosophical issues’ have developed their own methodologies and just updated the ‘gratuitous references’ to now be Popper (1968), Lakatos (1973), or Kuhn (1970) (e.g., Darnell and Evans, 1990; Hendry, 1993, 1995; Spanos, 1986). Consequently, it appears Caldwell’s observation is still applicable to a significant degree and worthy of consideration.

In the aforementioned paper, Davis presents an interesting reconstruction of Haavelmo’s methodological foundations of econometrics from the point of view of Suppe’s semantic view of theories (cf. Suppe 1989), which should not be confused with SVT. My aim is to apply this last metatheory to Spanos’ doctrine,

The logical structure of econometrics 183 which is a systematic and detailed development of Haavelmo’s view, formulated in a more contemporary language.