2 - Ragnar Frisch and the Foundation of the Econometric Society and Econometrica

Summary

Introduction

The Econometric Society was founded December 29, 1930. The constitutional assembly, or organization meeting, was held in the Statler Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio, during the annual joint meeting of American academic associations. Sixteen persons who were participating in one or another of the professional-association meetings took part in the organization meeting. The organizing group comprised 11 Americans (Harold Hotelling, Frederick C. Mills, William F. Ogburn, J. Harvey Rogers, Charles F. Roos, Malcolm C. Rorty, Henry Schultz, Walter A. Shewhart, Carl Snyder, Norbert Wiener, Edwin B. Wilson) and 5 Europeans, of whom 3 were Norwegians (Ragnar Frisch, Oystein Ore, Ingvar Wedervang) and two Austrians (Karl Menger, Joseph Schumpeter). The Americans present were all prominent members of the American Economic Association, the American Statistical Association, or the American Mathematical Society. Ragnar Frisch was associate professor of economics and statistics at the University of Oslo and had spent 1930 as a visiting professor at Yale University. Oystein Ore, a brilliant Norwegian mathematician affiliated with Yale University since 1929, had earlier in the same day chaired a joint session of the American Mathematical Society and the American Statistical Association where Ragnar Frisch had presented a paper (Frisch, 1931). Ingvar Wedervang was one of only two full professors of economics in Norway at the time. Joseph Schumpeter was visiting at Harvard University, preparing for his move to the United States 3 years later. Karl Menger, mathematician and economist, was the son of Carl Menger.