Its advances in economics involved the creation and integration of general equilibrium theory and econometrics.
The thrust of the Cowles approach was a specific, probabilistic framework in estimating simultaneous equations to model an economy.
The Cowles approach structured its models from a priori economic theory.
One of its main contributions was in exposing the bias of ordinary least squares regression in identifying coefficient estimates.
These include Tjalling Koopmans, Kenneth Arrow, Gérard Debreu, James Tobin, Franco Modigliani, Herbert A. Simon, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Lawrence Klein, Trygve Haavelmo, Leonid Hurwicz, and Harry Markowitz.