1.0Harvard Gazettehttps://dev.news.harvard.edu/gazetteharvardgazettehttps://dev.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/author/harvardgazette/Bringing hard science to economics — Harvard Gazetterich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="qsAtEuEpzI"><a href="https://dev.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/03/bringing-hard-science-to-economics/">Bringing hard science to economics</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://dev.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/03/bringing-hard-science-to-economics/embed/#?secret=qsAtEuEpzI" width="600" height="338" title="“Bringing hard science to economics” — Harvard Gazette" data-secret="qsAtEuEpzI" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script>
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Guido W. Imbens, now in his first year as a professor of economics at Harvard, was still in high school in the Netherlands when he decided to study economics. For a bright, energetic boy who had always excelled at mathematics, there was nothing dismal about the so-called "dismal science." At Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Imbens studied econometrics, an academically rigorous combination of mathematical economics and statistics. The tools of econometrics are used to test economic theories using data, and to measure economic variables that are important for public policy.