Observation and Observing in Economics

Maas, Harro; Morgan, Mary S.

doi:10.1215/00182702-1631761

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Ellwein 1997;Wetzell 2000;Tantner 2007;Török et al 2015; te Heesen 2022) and differences over formalization in the two traditions of statistics: the number loving tradition of political arithmetic and the Göttingen School of Statistics, which was more skeptical of tables (Lazarsfeld 1961;Bödeker 2001). Various social sciences have incorporated experimental elements into their methods or sought to constitute their objects through "observation" (Maas and Morgan 2012).…”

Section: Building On Research From the History Of Data Quantification...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Data at the doorstep

Schlicht,

Ledebur,

Echterhölter

2021

Sci Context

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Section: Building On Research From the History Of Data Quantification...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Data at the doorstep

Schlicht,

Ledebur,

Echterhölter

2021

Sci Context

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“…It is not so much an observation and recording device but an observation and revealing device rather like the modern fMRI scans, which produce sophisticated versions of the traditional X-rays. (Maas and Morgan 2012, 19)…”

Section: Two Cultures Of Expertise In the Bankmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This way of understanding practical uses would also reflect the order of the discipline, which attributes highest value to theoretical, model-related work and treats “applied” (e.g. econometric) works as peripheral (Breslau and Yonay 1999; Fourcade 2006; Maas and Morgan 2012; Morgan 2012). However, as will be shown in this article, knowledge within financial organizations is constituted according to distinct epistemic norms, professional identities, and practices; these norms, identities, and practices cannot be deduced from those of academic economics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consistent Forecasting vs. Anchoring of Market Stories: Two Cultures of Modeling and Model Use in a Bank

Wansleben¹

2014

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ArgumentIt seems theoretically convenient to construe knowledge practices in financial markets and organizations as "applied economics." Alternatively or additionally, one might argue that practitioners draw on economic knowledge in order to systematically orient their actions towards profit-maximization; models, then, are understood as devices that make calculative rationality possible. However, empirical studies do not entirely confirm these theoretical positions: Practitioners' actual calculations are often not "framed" by models; organizations and institutions influence the choice and adoption of models; and different professional groups in financial markets have diverging attitudes towards model calculations. In order to account for this diversity, this article proposes the concept of cultures of economic and financial expertise; the concept focuses on the patterns of knowledge practices and knowledge-related self-definitions of groups within financial organizations and markets; it also facilitates an analysis of the relations between and, more specifically, the hierarchies among different practices and identities. The article then goes on to explore the process of foreign exchange forecasting in a particular bank. The description immediately reveals that two groups are involved in this process: economists and analysts. These groups maintain quite different practices and self-descriptions in relation to models: While the economists in the bank use the models as organizational resources for consistent forecasting procedures and observe data with the help of simple model structures, analysts approach model forecasts from the perspective of critics: They see limits in the variablecentered, as opposed to a "thematic" approach and they disregard a model's imposed temporality. Nevertheless, analysts use model forecasts as anchors for developing their own "paths" and stories about possible future expectation changes in the markets. The specific division of labor between economists and analysts, and specifically the dominant role of analysts in the forecasting process, fit into a larger picture: The rise of institutional investors in the foreign exchange markets and their demand for genuine market knowledge for speculative investment projects has contributed to the rise and dominance of analysts' culture. of expertise include accounting (Power 2010), risk management (Kalthoff 2005;

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“…However, one of our motivations for organizing this conference is that the "history 2. Histories of nonprobabilistic approaches can be found in HOPE conference volumes covering more general themes and a longer time period, such as Klein andMorgan 2001 andMaas andMorgan 2012. of statistical inference" that emerges from this literature leaves out much that is important and interesting.…”

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confidence: 99%

Exploring the History of Statistical Inference in Economics

Boumans¹

2021

History of Political Economy

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We had two motivations that made us decide that an exploration of the history of statistical inference could be productive. One was related to John Maynard Keynes's distinction between two different functions that he observed in statistical research, and the other is that existing histories of empirical analysis seem to miss an important part of existing research practices in economics.Keynes, in his Treatise on Probability, made a distinction between the descriptive function of the theory of statistics, which involved devising ways to represent and summarize large amounts of data, and the inductive function, which "seeks to extend its descriptions of certain characteristics of observed events to the corresponding characteristics of other events that have not been observed" (Keynes [1921(Keynes [ ] 1973. This second part of statistics he called the theory of statistical inference. When looking at any given example of statistical research in economics, one is likely to see both what Keynes called description and what he called inference; indeed, it is not always obvious where one ends and the other begins. The researcher will have made decisions about how best to summarize statistical data, and

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Observation and Observing in Economics

Cited by 11 publications

References 28 publications

Data at the doorstep

Data at the doorstep

Consistent Forecasting vs. Anchoring of Market Stories: Two Cultures of Modeling and Model Use in a Bank

Exploring the History of Statistical Inference in Economics

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