Karl A. Fox

The Theory of Quantitative Economic Policy.

The Theory of Quantitative Economic Policy. By K. A. Fox, J. K. Sengupta and E. Thorbecke. Amsterdam, North‐Holland, 1966. xxiii + 514 pp. 834″. 120s.

The eco-behavioural view of human societies and its implications for systems science†

The OECD List of Social Indicators (1982) represents a new level of scientific maturity and consensus in specifying objective social indicators and relating them to well-established economic and social data systems. This paper proposes, as a next step, the experimental development of social system accounts and models incorporating the new indicators and the established data systems within a more comprehensive framework based on behaviour settings. As the immediate environments of all human behaviour and experience in market and non-market organizations alike, behaviour settings collectively contain the entire living-time of the population of a community, region, or nation in a given accounting period. An exhaustive classification of behaviour settings in (say) the United States would include about 400 categories analogous to, and in some cases identical with, industries ; the paid roles in behaviour settings are occupations and the unpaid ones could be classified into a limited number of quasi-occupations...

Social Accounts for Urban-Centered Regions

Social accounts are important for tracing the complex interactions of social and economic phenomena within a unified frame work. The concepts of central place theory and the ecological psychology of Roger Barker jointly offer a means for constructing social accounts based on time people spend in behavior settings within Functional Eco nomic Areas. Barkers concept of behavior setting genotypes translates readily into standard categories in the economic censuses and other pub lished data systems, as is demonstrated here by linking Barkers data on private enterprise genotypes to the selected business functions used by Borchert and Adams to classify trade centers into hierarchical levels.

Estimating the Effects of Institutional and Technological Changes Upon Agricultural Development: A Comparison of Multiple Regression and Programming Approaches

This paper owes its inception to a doctoral dissertation written by the junior author [1]. The dissertation itself is a substantive contribution to the knowledge available to Western scholars concerning agricultural development in Mainland China. However, it also raises some very interesting problems of conceptualization and measurement, and it is to these that we address ourselves here.

Econometrics Needs a History: Two Cases of Conspicuous Neglect

Econometrics needs a history. Our knowledge of our own past is very fragmentary. Instead of history we have oral traditions, and the traditions of different schools have glaring inconsistencies and incredible gaps. No civilized community would be content with this state of affairs, and if we econometricians are a community and are civilized, neither should we.

Behavior settings and eco-behavioral science: a new arena for mathematical social science permitting a richer and more coherent view of human activities in social systems, part II: Relationships to established disciplines, and needs for mathematical development

Abstract Part I of this paper presented the basic concepts of behavior settings and eco-behavioral science originated by the psychologist Roger Barker, showed how they could be linked with standard economic data systems, and suggested their use as a basis for time-allocation matrices and social system accounts. Part II discusses the relationships of behavior settings and eco-behavioral science to established disciplines, describes applications of mathematics to the new concepts by Fox and associates, and points out some major areas in need of mathematical and theoretical development. These areas include representation and measurement of patterns of relationships among roles within behavior settings, relationships among behavior settings within communities and organizations, and the evolution of large, heterogeneous populations of behavior settings over time. We hope some readers will be motivated to participate in this new scientific enterprise.

Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Price Forecasts

IN RECENT months three major articles have appeared relating to the accuracy of outlook work. The first of these, by James P. Cavin, described methods used by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics in preparing forecasts of general economic conditions and appraised the accuracy of such forecasts made during 1946-51.1 The other two, by John D. Baker, Jr. and Don Paarlberg, appraised the accuracy of the Bureaus general demand forecasts and its forecasts of production and prices of wheat from 1922 to 1950.2

Describing and measuring socioeconomic systems : Prerequisites to planning

This paper describes, by means of a sort of scientific autobiography, the environmental development of social system accounts and models incorporating new social indicators and the established data systems within a more comprehensive framework, based on behavioral settings. This development includes studies of the U.S. economy as a whole, descriptions of rural communities and small urban-centered regions, the conception of the Functional Economic Areas, and the new synthesis of rural and urban society in the U.S. Following these steps, a new challenge is represented by the description and measurement of complete social systems. From this point in time, research is aimed at integrating diverse concepts (behaviour settings and generalized media of social interchange) to derive measures of social and total income.

The Invisible Revolution in Economics: Emergence of a Mathematical Science

Gerhard Tintner was born in 1907 and received his Doctor’s degree at the University of Vienna in 1929. The length of his career to date has encompassed the organizational life of the Econometric Society (founded in 1930) and his interests and contributions have been virtually coextensive with its breadth.

A Behavior Setting Approach to Microanalytical Simulation Models at the Community Level

Barker’s social accounting system for the town of Midwest is unique in both coverage and conception. Though official data systems exist for private enterprises and government, his includes churches, voluntary associations and a good deal more on schools than is found in the U.S. Census of Governments. The individual reporting unit distinguished in most official systems (manufacturing establishments, stores, etc.) may also contain many behavior settings. Similarly, the variables collected and structural detail on the internal characteristics of behavior settings extend well beyond traditional financial accounting variables that are given most emphasis in government data systems.