Foreword to economic institutions of strategy

Charles Babbage once reproached economists for having “too small a use of facts, and too large an employment of theory. If facts are wanting, let it be remembered that the closet-philosopher is unfortunately too little acquainted with the admirable arrangements of the factory…. Nor let it be feared that erroneous deductions may be made from such recorded facts: the errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound reasoning respecting true data” (1989, Vol. 8, p. 110). Plainly, the black box theory of the firm was tilted in favor of analytical convenience at the expense of the facts.