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From Exploratory Modeling to Technical Expertise: Solow’s Growth Model as a Multipurpose Design

Verena Halsmayer

History of Political Economy, 2014, vol. 46, issue 5, 229-251

Abstract: Combining concrete policy-oriented modeling strategies of World War II with what was received as traditional neoclassical theory, in 1956 Robert Solow constructed a simple, clean, and smooth-functioning “design†model that served many different purposes. As a working object, it enabled experimentation with utopian long-run equilibrium growth. As an instrument of measurement, it was applied to time-series data. As a prototype, it was supposed to feed into larger-scale econometric models that were, in turn, thought of as technologies for policy advice. Used as a teaching device, Solow’s design became a medium of “spreading the technique†and one of the symbols for neoclassical macroeconomics that soon became associated with MIT.

Keywords: MIT; growth theory; Robert Solow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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