In recent years economics has been the subject of increasingly severe criticism. It has failed both to predict and to counteract the economic crisis now aftlicting nearly the whole Western world. Economic life is more disrupted than ever: - the rate of inflation has risen alarmingly - unemployment has not been as high since the 1930s - economic growth is stagnating - there is increasing opposition to the inequality in the distribution of income and wealth, on anational scale as weIl as in the world at large - the process of economic integration (EEC, GATT, UNCTAD) is being thwarted - programmes of economic development in the third world have not produced the desired effects - etcetera. Obviously, it would not be fair to put the blame for the crisis on economic science. But the present predicament does call for serious consideration of the !imitations of economic explanation. Among the social sciences, economics is unquestionably the most advanced discipline. Its very sophistication, however, leads it to abstract from social phenomena such as norms, institutions, power, conflict and social change. Thus the manifest influence of sociological variables on the course of economic processes remains hidden. Dominating this book as a drumbeat is the conviction held by the several authors that a c1earer grasp of the current problems may be obtained if economists and sociologists are prepared to co-operate more closely. An interdisciplinary approach is warranted; the distinction between the social sciences should be less sharply drawn.

The chapters in this book provide coverage of the theoretical underpinnings and methodologies that typify research using a Spatially Integrated Social Science (SISS) approach. This insightful Handbook is intended chiefly as a primer for students and bu

Causal models are formal theories stating the relationships between precisely defined variables, and have become an indispensable tool of the social scientist. This collection of articles is a course book on the causal modeling approach to theory construction and data analysis. H. M. Blalock, Jr. summarizes the then-current developments in causal model utilization in sociology, political science, economics, and other disciplines. This book provides a comprehensive multidisciplinary picture of the work on causal models. It seeks to address the problem of measurement in the social sciences and to link theory and research through the development of causal models.Organized into five sections (Simple Recursive Models, Path Analysis, Simultaneous Equations Techniques, The Causal Approach to Measurement Error, and Other Complications), this volume contains twenty-seven articles (eight of which were specially commissioned). Each section begins with an introduction explaining the concepts to be covered in the section and links them to the larger subject. It provides a general overview of the theory and application of causal modeling.Blalock argues for the development of theoretical models that can be operationalized and provide verifiable predictions. Many of the discussions of this subject that occur in other literature are too technical for most social scientists and other scholars who lack a strong background in mathematics. This book attempts to integrate a few of the less technical papers written by econometricians such as Koopmans, Wold, Strotz, and Fisher with discussions of causal approaches in the social and biological sciences. This classic text by Blalock is a valuable source of material for those interested in the issue of measurement in the social sciences and the construction of mathematical models.