Jan Tinbergen

The Tinbergen rule says that policymakers generally need at least as many independent policy instruments as they have independent targets. Trying to control inflation and unemployment with only one effective instrument, for example, may leave one objective unattainable.

Tinbergen shared the inaugural 1969 economics prize with Ragnar Frisch. They were honored for developing and applying dynamic models to the analysis of economic processes.

Tinbergen constructed statistically estimated systems of equations representing relationships among investment, consumption, income, prices, and other aggregate variables. His work on the Dutch economy and business cycles helped establish large-scale econometric modeling as a policy tool.

John Maynard Keynes criticized Tinbergen's statistical business-cycle analysis for relying on fragile assumptions and uncertain causal relationships. Their exchange became an early debate over how far mathematical and statistical models can test economic theories.