Why did Leontief focus on empirical data?
I believed that economic theory should be firmly rooted in observable reality. Too much of economics at the time was becoming overly abstract and detached from the concrete workings of economies. My goal was to build models from the ground up, using actual data on interindustry transactions. This empirical approach, much like an engineer's focus on materials and structure, was essential for understanding how economies function and for making reliable predictions or policy recommendations.
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