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30 Jean Piaget
C. Economics are roughly half-way between the extremes of demography
and psychology: measurement is easier than it is in psychology, but experimen-
tation is less easy, the difficulties being comparable to those encountered in
demography. However, some of the many attempts of States or private enter-
prise to manipulate the economy can be regarded as experiments (conducted
with varying degrees of success).
Measurements are more feasible in economics than in psychology, for it is
in the nature of exchanges of values occurring in such a field to be quantified, as
opposed to the qualitative exchanges which generally characterize social
relations of a moral, political or affective type. For instance, if two students
enjoy seeing each other, or find it interesting, one to discuss mathematics, the
other linguistics, this cannot be called an economic exchange; but if they agree
to put this exchange on a regular footing and set one hour for mathematics in
exchange for one for linguistics, the arrangement becomes economic, even
though the contents of the exchange are the same as before, and measurement
is involved (at least a measure of time, failing one of information or ideas
supplied). Prices, currency, etc., thus constitute a set of quantifications, which
are not just ordinal or ‘intensive’,IZ but extensive or metric. In the various
branches of economics it is therefore easy to find occasion for much authentic
measurement using units peculiar to this or that sector (for example, output per
inhabitant in the comparison of socio-economic aggregates). But we are still a
long way from a complete system of units capable of being equated, as in
physics.
On the other hand, in economics, experimentation is not feasible in the
strict sense of assigning and systematically varying the factors. It can here be
broadly defined as ‘any direct or indirect action brought to bear on a given
situation for the purpose of producing or obtaining observable consequences’
(Solari). Actually, experimentation at this level consists mainly in observation
governed by a system of abstractions, in turn inspired by the theoretical models
adopted as hypotheses. It is therefore the combination of the theoretical model
and the experimental pattern, i.e. a pattern laying down what is to be observed
and what procedure is to be followed, which constitutes the basic methodologi-
cal approach in econometrics. In this interaction between the deductive and the
experimental process, as also in the r61e played by methodical abstraction, the
general character of all the sciences, natural and human, is immediately
recognizable.
The real difficulty with this discipline, given the lack of experimentation in
the strict sense and the fact that synchronic and diachronic factors are ever-
present and extraordinarily complex, is how to adjust the theoretical model to
the experimental patterns, for the latter are likely to be so global and insufficient-
ly differentiated as to rule out an analysis leading to decisions. As a theoretical
model does not lead to a practical interpretation which can actually be verified,
it is only a logical pattern. Conversely a set of observations which is not rather
fully structured is merely descriptive.
Now the theoretical models used in economics are becoming more and more
highly refined: mathematical logic, mechanical and stochastic models, the the-