Juan Acosta and Erich Pinzón-Fuchs recount the history of the creation of a deeply complex macroeconomic model of the US economy developed by the SSRC’s Committee on Economic Stability in the early 1960s. The work was led by future Nobel winner Lawrence Klein and sought to take advantage of emergent computing technology and a range of databases to simulate the potential impacts of various economic policy options. Based in part on research in the SSRC archives, the authors argue that the model was a pioneering effort in large-scale collaboration among economists with a long-lasting influence.
Juan Acosta
Juan Acosta is a PhD candidate at the University of Lille, France, and a research fellow at Duke University’s Center for the History of Political Economy. His research focuses on the history of postwar macroeconomics and on the evolution of economists' presence and practices at the Federal Reserve.