Economics: The Open-Access, Open Assessment E-Journal http://www.economics-ejournal.org en David Colander Economists, Incentives, Judgment, and Empirical Work 2008-04-07 This paper asks the question: Why has the " general-to-specific " cointegrated VAR approach as developed in Europe had only limited success in the US as a tool for doing empirical macroeconomics, where what might be called a " theory comes first " approach dominates? The reason this paper highlights is the incompatibility of the European approach with the US focus on the journal publication metric for advancement. Specifically, the European " general-to specific " cointegrated VAR approach requires researcher judgment to be part of the analysis, and the US focus on a journal publication metric discourages such research methods. The US " theory comes first " approach fits much better with the journal publication metric. Paper submitted to the special issue " Using Econometrics for Assessing Economic Models " edited by Katarina Juselius. http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2008-12 JEL B4