Letter to the Editors: Solving Vincent Carret’s Puzzle: A Rebuttal of Carret’s Fallacies and Errors

Abstract

In his article published in JHET in 2022, Vincent Carret (2022a) criticizes our work. In footnote 19, pages 630–631, he claims that our result “is based on a mistaken interpretation of the paragraph at the bottom of p. 191 of Frisch (1933).” He then states that we “take to mean that the coefficient of each cycle in the general sum of solutions is arbitrary, while … these coefficients [depended] on initial conditions and the parameters of the system.” The present rejoinder aims at rebutting Carret’s allegation of mistaken interpretation in our work. We demonstrate that his statements are based on a misunderstanding of Frisch’s econometric model and approach. Then, we show that Carret’s results are not supported by the demonstration he claims to have made, and that he misrepresents our arguments.