Simplicity, Inference and Modelling: Keeping it Sophisticatedly Simple pdf

Arnold Zellner was born on January 2, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York. Arnold attended Harvard University on scholarship, earning a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1949. Upon completing his tour of duty in the Army, he used his GI Bill benefits to attend the University of California, Berkley, where he earned a PhD in economics in 1957. He held appointments in the Department of Economics at the University of Washington (1955–1960) and the University of Wisconsin (1961–1966) before accepting an appointment as the H.G.B. Alexander Professor of Economics and Statistics at the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business (1966–1996). Since retiring in 1996 from the University of Chicago, he has been a frequent lecturer throughout the world and a visiting professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkley.

Simplicity, Inference and Modelling: Keeping it Sophisticatedly Simple pdf by Arnold Zellner

The idea that simplicity matters in science is as old as science itself, with the much cited example of Ockham's Razor. A problem with Ockham's Razor is that nearly everybody seems to accept it, but few are able to define its exact meaning and to make it operational in a non-arbitrary way. Using a multidisciplinary perspective including philosophers, mathematicians, econometricians and economists, this monograph examines simplicity by asking six questions: What is meant by simplicity? How is simplicity measured? Is there an optimum trade-off between simplicity and goodness-of-fit? What is the relation between simplicity and empirical modelling? What is the relation between simplicity and prediction? What is the connection between simplicity and convenience?