Simon Kuznets and the Empirical Tradition in Economics

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Before his 33rd birthday, Simon Kuznets introduced the logistic and Gompertz curves to economic analysis, defined the key issues in the study of economic growth, and laid the basis for the now standard seasonal adjustments for prices, employment, and output. His next 15 years were devoted to the development of national income accounts and their application to practical problems of government. As chief statistician of the War Production Board, he demonstrated the superiority of the national income approach in establishing wartime and civilian production targets. During the balance on his career, Kuznets concentrated on developing an empirically based theory of modern economic growth, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Professor Robert Fogel and Dean Enid Fogel are investigating the work of Simon S. Kuznets with the objective not only of assessing his contributions to economics, but also of showing how Kuznets' work helped to transform economics during the twentieth century from a branch of moral philosophy to a discipline that provides an important share of the individuals who make and implement economic policy in the government and in business. They are examining both Kuznets' substantive contribution to economic knowledge and his scientific methods. These methods, as much as the substantive work, are a major factor in the transformation of economics, yet they are now known only to a relatively limited circle of empirical investigators.