The Introduction of the Electronic Computer and the End of Business Forecasting at the NBER
| Autor: | Laetitia Lenel |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | English<br />French |
| Rok vydání: | 2023 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Œconomia, Vol 13, Iss 3, Pp 657-680 (2023) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 2113-5207 2269-8450 |
| DOI: | 10.4000/oeconomia.14768 |
| Popis: | For the greater part of the twentieth century, business forecasting has been a struggle against time. Forecasters needed reliable, comprehensive, and up-to-date data that would allow them to extrapolate trends for the months ahead. The collection and analysis of economic data, however, were laborious processes, and became even more so as the mass of statistical data grew. Focusing on the history of business cycle research conducted at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the article investigates how the introduction of large-scale computers in the early 1950s altered the field of business cycle research and forecasting. While the advent of large-scale electronic computers promised to solve the problem of timeliness, making it, for the first time, possible to process economic data within minutes, electronic computers brought about new problems of time. The complex and highly time-consuming task of programming and the scarcity of machine time pushed business cycle researchers to aim for ever greater standardization in the use of electronic computers. While this did indeed allow for an unprecedented acceleration in data processing, it also limited the possibilities of exercising trained judgment. As this article argues, this ultimately challenged the researchers’ concepts of economic change and called into question the very project of forecasting itself. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
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