The level of prices rose more than twentyfold in the period from 1806 to 18132, and in 1813 the currency was devalued by almost 90 percent. The first national assembly at Eidsvoll was attended by representatives of a nation in deprivation. For the 112 sworn representatives, popularly known as the men of Eidsvoll, who took their places as the Constituent Assembly in spring 1814, the atmosphere was nonetheless full of hope for freedom and a better future. Several of them had spent time abroad and had been influenced by the Enlightenment philosophers and by the American and French revolutions. The Norwegian Constitution was inspired by the thoughts and ideas they brought home with them. Absolute monarchy under the Danish king was to be replaced by the sovereignty of the people and the separation of powers. Institutions with clearly distinguished roles would prevent the arbitrary use of power and foster confidence. This evening we are gathered in one such institution. In the discussion at Eidsvoll, Christian Magnus Falsen, a key member of the Constituent Assembly, said that no state can exist without a well functioning monetary system. Another prominent member of the Assembly, Count Wedel Jarlsberg, insisted that the nation must have its own bank. The people’s elected representatives took responsibility for the monetary system, as stated in Article 75 of the Constitution: «It devolves upon the Storting to supervise the monetary affairs of the Realm».
One of their papers published in the Journal of Economic Literature in March, 1996 under the title “The Standard Error of Regressions” has made the following eyeopening comment: “Such misuses of statistical significance appear to depend in part on a vintage effect, measured by date of Ph.D. conferral. The papers authored by Ph.D.s conferred between 1975 and 1979, when inexpensively generated t-tests first reached the masses, were considerably worse than the papers of others at making a distinction between economic and statistical significance. They used the word “significance” in ambiguous ways more often than did early or later Ph.D.s and they were less likely to separate statistical significance from other types of significance in the sections on scientific and policy implications” (p 111). The other findings of McCloskey and Ziliak are also startling. Of the 182 articles in the American Economic Review they have surveyed, 70 percent had not distinguished statistical significance from economic, policy or scientific significance. While they had referred to largeness of the estimators, 72 percent had not asked “how large was large?” At the same time, 59 percent had used the word “significance” in ambiguous ways. A more pronounced failure has been the non-reporting of descriptive statistics such as the means of the regression variables by 69 percent of the authors. (p 106). The problem with econometric studies is that the computations made by authors remain as a “black box” to ordinary readers.