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Ie 26me aout 1952

Hie

Monsieur l e Professeur RenI HOY,
7, Rue de l a C i t I U n i v e r s i t a i r e ,
P a r i s XIY. France.
Mon Cher Collêgue e t Ami,
Je me p e r r e t s de vous envoyer c i - i n c l u s quelques
r i f l e x i o n s sur 1'organisation de nos conferences futures
qui la'ont êtê i n s p i r é e s par quelques d i f f i e u l t e s ^prouv^es
h Cambridge. Vous cpmprendrez q u ' i l s ' a g i t cependant non
seulenent de n o t r e dernier congres, mais de nos congres
en g l n ^ r a l . J ' a i n e r a i s avoir vos r e a c t i o n s s i vous en
avez, a f i n d ' a r r i v e r h un schema de nos sessions futures
qui nous s a t i s f e r a le plus p o s s i b l e ,
Croyez moi toujours votre bien devout.

Des copies ont êtê envoyées ^ M.M, Stone, Frisch, Allen,
Bresciani-Turroni, Colin Clark, Griffith, Hicks, Koopmans,
Kuznets, Leontief, V/old.

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COPY

PROF. DR J . TINBERGEN

La Haye, I e 26me a o ü t , 1952
S i j z e n l a a n ^+1

Monsieur I e P r o f e s s e u r Renl flOY,
7, Rue de l a Cit^ U n i v e r s i t a i r e ,
P a r i s XIV. F r a n c e ,

Mon c h e r Collègue e t Ami,
Je me permets de vous envoyer c i - i n c l u s

quelques

r e f l e x i o n s sur 1 ' o r g a n i s a t i o n de nos conférences

futures

q u i m'ont étè

éprouvées

i n s p i r é e s par quelques d i f f i c u l t é s

h. Cambridge, Vous comprendrez q u ' i l s ' a g i t cependant; non
seulement de n o t r e d e r n i e r c o n g r e s , mais de nos congres en
g e n e r a l , J ' a i m e r a i s a v o i r vos r e a c t i o n s s i vous en a v e z , afin
d ' a r r l v e r è un schema de nos s e s s i o n s f u t u r e s q u i nous s a t i s f e r a I e plus p o s s i b l e ,
Croyez mol toujours votre bien devout,
(get, J. Tinbergen)

Des copies ont êté

envoyées h M,M, Stone, Frisch, Allen,
Evans
Bresciani-Turroni, Colin Clark, C^iCC^ïiKütt, Hicks, Koopmans,
Kuznets, Leontief, Wold.

IT-

THE ECONOIffiiTRIC SOCIETY
The Efficiency of Our European Meetings
Although several most important contributions were
made by the participants of our Cambridge meeting, and the
material organization ran perfectly smoothly, I must confess
that I was not satisfied by it, which partly may be due to
the fact that I v/as not available during the evenings and
that I was somewhat tired. Since, however, the few remarks
that I have to make apply also to most of our previous
meetings, I hope they may be of some use to the organizers
of our future meetings. Indeed I think that the efficiency
of our meetings is considerably less than it could be. I
tried to analyse the reasons why this is so, and I think they
are the following;
1. There is still a number of our French-speaking
members that are speaking too quickly, and a number of our
English-speaking members that are speaking not clearly enough
in order to make them understandable for many of the other
participants, in particular, if the subject is a difficult
one. I think we should all exercise in speaking the
econometric English and the econometric French so well known
from Frisch's technique of leading in pre-war meetings,
2. A most important condition for really fruitful
and deep-going discussions seems to me to be a sufficient
degree of specialization of the subjects of the conferences.
Subjects, therefore, should bo chosen within a few rather
narrow and well-defined parts of research and the participants
shoud be either specialists on those subjects or wanting tD
specialize themselves on these subjects,
3. Readers should be careful as to the didactics of
their paper. Problems should be stated clearly. The sames
applies to the hypotheses made and the methods followed. The
main points should be shortly symbolized on the black-board.
Difficult subjects should be introduced as much as possible
by a simple but concrete example and only after that be
generalized; in this example the main point should be sot
very clearly.
k, I think our programs have always been and still
are overloaded: a number of three papers per morning and
three papers per afternoon, leaving one hour for each paper
(including the discussion) is far too much, particularly,
if always again only a part of the contributors make it
possible to distribute their papers in advance. Experience
from the Driebergen-meeting in 1950 on input-output questions
shov/s, I think, that one paper per morning and one paper per
afternoon is a much better frequency. Correspondingly, the
papers should perhaps bo combined papers,
5. ASf: already observed in the previous point, papers
should bo distributed well in advance 5 perhaps we should
simply not accept papers in the final}, program that have not
actually been distributed a fortnight before the conference.

37^ D'52

2

I am sure these remarks are partly a reflexion of
my own lack of understanding new and difficult subjects^
nevertheless I do hope that they nay lead, if somewhat
propagated, to a considerable increase in efficiency of our
bi- or multilinguist meetings, the costs of which to each
individual participant or to the organization which pays them
are usually pretty high. It is our duty to make them as
efficient as possible,
J, Tinbergen