Abraham Wald : a statistician as a key figure for modern econometrics

Abstract

Abraham Wald (AW), the mostly unknown mathematician, only cited for some of his findings in statistics (e.g. 'Wald’s equation'), shows to be much more important than only serving as a footnote in statistical papers. The text examines the overseen relevancy of AW as a founding father of econometrics, a key figure and trigger for Nobel Price laureates like Trygve Haavelmo. It also tries to work out a basic blueprint for a history of mathematical economics, its momentums and roots. AW's rising in mathematical economics began in the 1930s in Vienna, blossoming up into a very productive period during the 1940s and mainly the beginning 1950s after his emigraton to the US. AW’s work and influence on people like Oskar Morgenstern and Trygve Haavelmo, makes him a first class protagonist who laid ground and path for Nobel Prize Winners and men who produced well-known classics in mathematical economics. These developments led the US into an international leadership in the field of econometrics, a trend that went unbroken through the following decades. Following the uneasy circumstances of AW, the eastern Jew, who had not a whiff of a chance to succeed in old Vienna and also got deeply into the harsh times of an tumultuous era in Europe’s history between the wars, we trace his constant personal fate towards mathematical economics that turned out to be a godsend in science. A man of his talents and mathematical abilities was able to form out a new kind of science, of which the 1930s already were partially pregnant: the econometrics.