ABSTRACT
Ever since Koopmans (1947) criticized Burns and Mitchell’s (1946) book on Measuring Business Cycles as being “measurement without theory,” the reporting of business cycle facts has been taboo in economics. In his essay, Koopmans presents two basic criticisms of Burns and Mitchell’s study. The first is that it provides no systematic discussion of the theoretical reasons for including particular variables over others in their empirical investigation. Before variables can be selected, Koopmans argues, some notion is needed of the theory that generates the economic fluctuations. With this first criticism we completely agree: Theory is crucial in selecting which facts to report.
