Ragnar Frisch was a professor of economics at the University of Oslo in Norway. He and economist Jan Tinbergen received the first Nobel Prize in Economics for "his pioneering work in econometric modeling and measurement. ".. Frisch invented the word "econometrics" to refer to the use of mathmatical and statistical techniques to test economic hypotheses," and was also the first to use the words microeconomics and macroeconomics. He also founded the Econometric Society in 1930.

He saw economics as a hard science versus a social science and was confident that the use of econometric tools would yield a better understanding of economics, however, this confidence waned in later years due to what he saw as abuse of econometric too ls. Frisch wrote: " I have insisted that econometrics must have relevance to concrete realities--otherwise it degenerates into something which is not worthy of the name econometrics, but ought rather to be called playometrics."

Works by Ragnar Frisch:

• Econometrics in the World Today, Induction, Growth and Trade: Essays in Honour of Sir Roy Harrod
  
• Annual Survey of General Economic Theory: The Problem of Index Numbers, Econometrica
  
• Statistical Confluence Analysis by Means of Complete Regression Systems
  
• Propogation Problems and Impulse Problems in Dynamic Economics, Economic Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel