"This essay has been devoted to an exposition and elaboration of a single syllogism: given that the structure of an econometric model consist of optimal decision rules of economic agents, and that optimal decision rules vary systematically with changes in the structure of series relevant to the decision maker, it follows that any change in policy will systematically alter the structure of econometric models.
For the question of short-term forecasting, or tracking ability of econometric models, we have seen that this conclusion is of only occasional significance. For issues involving policy evaluation, in contrast, it is fundamental; for it implies that comparisons of the effects of alternative policy rules using current macro-econometric models are invalid regardless of the performance of these models over the sample period or in ex-ante short-term forecasting."
- —Robert Lucas, Econometric Policy Evaluation: A Critique, 1976