Econometric Society

Ragnar Frisch was a key figure in the early developments of the Econometric Society. Along with Charles Roos and Irving Fisher, he convened an organizational meeting in December 1930 in Cleveland, where the American Economic Association, the American Statistical Association and the American Mathematical Society were holding their annual meeting. Joseph Schumpeter chaired the 16-person meeting, which founded the Econometric Society and elected Irving Fisher as its first President. The first annual meeting of the Econometric Society took place in Lausanne in September 1931. After Ragnar Frisch and Josef Schumpeter issued a memorandum in Bonn calling for the publication of a journal, and Alfred Cowles offered funding, the Society launched Econometrica in 1933, with Ragnar Frisch as its Editor. The first issue of Econometrica published the papers presented in the first meeting; and the fourth issue listed the first 29 Fellows of the Econometric Society. In addition to Econometrica, the Econometric Society publishes two open-access journals, Quantitative Economics and Theoretical Economics. Theoretical Economics was an established journal prior to its association with the Society. The Society approached TE’s Executive Board about bringing the journal on as a title of the Society. An agreement was finalized on December 25, 2008, and the first issue of TE published under the auspices of the Econometric Society appeared in January 2010. Quantitative Economics was a new journal developed by the Society, which published its first issue in July 2010. Starting in 1965 in Rome, the Society has sponsored a World Congress every five years, gathering all of the Society’s regions together in one meeting. Except for World Congress years, meetings of the Econometric Society in North America and in Europe have been held almost every year since the first meeting in 1931. The first meeting of another region of the Society was organized by the Latin American region and held in Buenos Aires in 1980. Even before it formally became a region of the Society, Australasia held its first regional meeting in 1983 in Sydney. The Asian region has been reorganized a few times over its history but the first regional meeting for one of the Asian regions was the meeting of what was then called the Far East region in Tokyo in 1987. Finally, the Society’s newest region, Africa, had its first regional meeting in 2014 in Addis Ababa. Currently, except for World Congress years, there is a regional meeting every year in each of the six regions, with two in North America, two in Europe, and three in Asia. More information and documents on the history of the Econometric Society can be found in the documents below.