extracted text

PROP. DR J. TINBERGEN

THE HAGUE, 2o March 1953
Raamweg 18 (office address)
Mr Raymond W. Goldsmith,
1129 Vermont Afenue N.W.
Washington 5 D.C,

Dear Mr Goldsmith,
I got your letter of Pebiniary 10 (was not
it misdated ?) about your paper on saving, I also
got the paper itself and I read it up to page 28,
Unfortunately I am now taken up by some urgent work
which will make it impossible for me to finish
reading the next few weeks. This is why I give you
already now the remarks I have to make on the first
28 pages,
I think the paper is very interesting. If
I have to make some suggestions it is only on details
of exposition. Here they are,
page 5, bottom. Is not this approach a little
bit too empiric ? Should not we also
ask ourselves which saving concepts
and which independent variables and
functions seem to be relevant ones from
an economic point of view ?
" 10, bottom, I don't quite like to speak of
e3cpectations without any further addition;
I would rather prefer to speak of income
expectations, price expectations a. s. o,
and I don't see why this variable öx>uld
not be a quantitative one,
" 15, middle of the page. Should not it be
stated that the function S/Y = f (X) is
also less general arvdneed not therefore
be the correct one ?
15» bottom, I quite agree with you say about
the treatment of prices and population,
•' 18. I don't think that the less high coefficients of determination you get with
deflated values prove in any way that
these functions would be less significant
than the functions in current values. On
the contrary, the economic argument
would be in favour of the opposite
statement. Statistically the fact that
you compare,when using current values,
two series v/hich are both dancing up
and down as a conseq.uence of the same
price movements explains the higher
correlation without irajiying that it is
more significant,
" 22. Your statement in the middle of the
page, that the zero-saving-point is
generally higher for deflated than for
current saving, should be qualified
by mentioning at which basis the values
are deflated, I did not find an indication of it in the text or in the tables.

As a last general remark, may I suggest that more
historical graphs are added ?
With "best personal regards,
yours very sincerely,