In the first issue of Econometrica, the Econometric Society stated that
its main object shall be to promote studies that aim at a unification of the
theoretical-quantitative and the empirical-quantitative approach to economic
problems and that are penetrated by constructive and rigorous thinking similar
to that which has come to dominate the natural sciences.
But there are several aspects of the quantitative approach to economics, and
no single one of these aspects taken by itself, should be confounded with econometrics.
Thus, econometrics is by no means the same as economic statistics. Nor
is it identical with what we call general economic theory, although a considerable
portion of this theory has a definitely quantitative character. Nor should
econometrics be taken as synonomous [sic] with the application of mathematics
to economics. Experience has shown that each of these three viewpoints, that
of statistics, economic theory, and mathematics, is a necessary, but not by itself
a sufficient, condition for a real understanding of the quantitative relations in
modern economic life. It is the unification of all three that is powerful. And it
is this unification that constitutes econometrics.