MEMORANDUM

in 1925, or, for that matter, Germany for USA in 1931. Other choices would have led him
onto different paths but surely paths that would have served to release the great talent
Wassily Leontief had for analyzing social and economic phenomena combining theory,
mathematical tools, and his firm conviction that scholars needed to have direct and firm
knowledge of the data providing underpinning of their theories.
Leontief’s interest in empirical applications and his hands on approach to data
handling is not at variance with Robert Solow’s characterization of him as “first and
foremost a theorist” (Solow 1998, p.299). His general modus operandi or research
strategy which can be discerned already in the late 1920s distinguished him from many
other scholars. A characteristic feature of Leontief as a scholar was his insistence on the
empirical relevance of economic research. At the same time he insisted on the preeminence
of theory; any empirical investigation had to guided by theory, economic data
should be compiled and analyzed within a theoretical framework. It was required that the
researcher should acquire a very thorough knowledge of the empirical realities as if he was
literally wading through the masses of data.
Leontief was one of the charter members of the Econometric Society (founded 1930),
the main objective of which was “…to promote studies that aim at a unification of the
theoretical-quantitative and the empirical-quantitative approach to economic problems and
that are penetrated by constructive and rigorous thinking similar to that which has come to
dominate in the natural sciences.” 5 The formulation appealed to Leontief since he first read
it in 1930.
Leontief’s view on the role of theory in the use of economic data was stated in a
hidden away passage in one of his key papers:
“The most elaborate statistical investigation furnishes nothing but shapeless heaps
of raw material, utterly useless unless fitted into a firm theoretical framework”
(Leontief 1937, p.131).
The passage mirrored a statement by Ragnar Frisch a few years earlier: “The material
under observation is and remains a dead mass until it is animated by constructive
theoretical speculation.” 6 Similar views were shared among several of the early
econometricians.
On various occasions Leontief spoke out on such matters and voiced opposition to
prevailing views and practices. He was utterly opposed to a strict division of labor between
on the one hand theoreticians constructing models and on the other researchers who
5 Constitution, Econometrica 1, Jan. 1933, p.106.
6 Frisch (1931, p.282; transl. by ob).
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