Business and the Making of American Econometrics, 1910–1940

From 1910–1940, the practice of business and the practice of economics came to inform one another in novel ways, a reconfiguration that included the emergence of econometrics. The core locus for this intersection came from the rise of commercial forecasting—whether analyses of future demand, price and cost fluctuations, or financial markets—based on the analysis of statistical data. Forecasting united a suite of specific interactions with the practice of economics: business support for the construction of specific economic data (making possible new forms of econometric analysis); the creation of a new social role: the economist/business expert with advanced academic training (who engaged in both practices and used each to serve the other); and the consequent development of new knowledge (especially in demand analysis and financial economics).