In his own review of Tinbergen’s work, Haavelmo (1943) recognized the main burden
of the criticisms of Tinbergen’s work by Keynes and others, and argued the need for a
general statistical framework to deal with these criticisms. As we have seen, Haavelmo’s
response, despite the views expressed by Keynes and others, was to rely more, rather than
less, on the probability model as the basis of econometric methodology. The technical
problems raised by Keynes and others could now be dealt with in a systematic manner
by means of formal probabilistic models. Once the probability model was specified, a
solution to the problems of estimation and inference could be obtained by means of
either classical or of Bayesian methods. There was little that could now stand in the way
of a rapid development of econometric methods.