The question is, how did economics change its attitude to mathematicsin the forty years between Håvelmo’s The Probability Approach inEconometrics and his Nobel Prize in 1989, when he was pessimistic aboutthe impact the development of econometrics had had on the practice ofeconomics. Coinciding with Håvelmo’s pessimism, many economists werereacting strongly against the ‘mathematisation’ of economics, evidencedby the fact that before 1925, only around 5% of economics researchpapers were based on mathematics, but by 1944, the year of Havelmoand von Neumann-Morgenstern’s contributions, this had quintupled to25%1.While the proportion of economics papers being based on maths has notcontinued this trajectory, the influence of mathematical economics has and theperson most closely associated with this change in economic practice was PaulSamuelson. Samuelson is widely regarded as the most influential economist to come out ofthe United States and is possibly the most influential post-war economist...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]