Scientific Forecasting: Its Methods and Application to Practical Business and to Stock Market Operations.

KARSTEN, Karl.

$6,800.00

Item Number: 4387

New York: Greenberg, 1931.

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original maroon cloth. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.

Scientific Forecasting was based on Karsten's experience as stock market analyst, and was written as a handbook for stockbrokers. This work on scientific forecasting focussed on the methods and application to practical business and to stock market operations, and relied on the techniques of the economic barometers. "Karsten was fairly optimistic about his abilities to make prognoses, but, as he had to admit , 'at the present time this investigation can not account for economic changes which are wholly due to the element of mob-, crowd- or herd-psychology'.[18] In general, however, Karsten's conclusion is that these psychological factors are relatively unimportant, which leads him to find reason to state that his results support "economic determinism". There is only one exception: the stock market. Of course it is not surprising that Karsten was moderate with claims about stock market prediction, so shortly after the generally unexpected crash of 1929" ( Keuzenkamp).