Econometrics

The first volume of Franklin M. Fisher's collected essays, Industrial
Organization, Economics, and the Law, focused on the application of economic
analysis to legal disputes in the areas of regulation and antitrust. This second
volume brings together Fisher's work in econometric theory and practice, including
studies on the underlying structure of econometric models that were fundamental to
the subject.Fisher's early discovery of block-recursive systems, together with his
results on continuity for small specification errors, provided a foundation for all
structural estimation. His later work on causation dealt with the implications of
regarding simultaneous equation models as limiting cases of nonsimultaneous models.
The essays in this book enlarge on those themes in various ways.Part one begins with
essays that introduce the basic concepts of block-recursive systems and the
foundational material for structural estimation in econometrics. They focus on
simultaneous equations and the problem of exogenous variables, raising questions
about the nature of econometric models and attempting to answer them through the
analysis of block recursive models. Part two uses the results from Part one to
examine issues of specification error and includes Fisher's classic exposition of
Chow tests. Part three contains empirical I work, including studies of the copper
industry, wheat supply in the nineteenth century, the famous Fisher-Griliches-Kaysen
examination of the costs of automobile model changes, and the effect of the removal
of firemen on railroad accidents.Franklin A Fisher is Professor of Economics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology where John Monz is a Ph.D. candidate in
economics.