The paper deals with chemometric analysis of the inductive effect. The notion of inductive effect is discussed, and unambiguous definitions are given for the notions of triad: reaction centre-basic skeleton-substituent, and the therewith connected definitions of inductive effect. For a quantitative description of inductive effect 7 types of chemical models were selected including noncyclic compounds, cyclic, and bicyclic compounds, derivatives of quinuclidine, 3-substituted benzoic acids, sulfonamides and pyridines. Altogether 139 sets of experimental data from literature have been used including altogether 1 294 points (9.3 points per set, 5 points at least) reflecting substituent effects of 34 substituents. It has been found that for a standard model the dissociation of substituted bicycloalkanecarboxylic acids only is satisfactory, all the other models reflecting also the mesomeric effects to variable extent (up to 10%). A distinctly different substitution behaviour was observed with 19F and 13C NMR chemical shifts of 4-substituted 1-fluoro- or 1-methylbicyclo[2.2.2]octanes. The earlier suggested model of substituent effects based on different way of transmission of substituent effects (3 classes) has been used for separating the inductive and mesomeric effects: it is mathematically presented as a set of straight lines with the intersection point at the so-called isoeffect substituent constant. Using the modified method of conjugated deviations a chemometric scale has been created for the inductive effect which agrees very well with the conventional scales given in literature; the only differences were observed for F and CH=O substituents (which are overestimated and underestimated, respectively, in literature). In the context given the inductive effect appears as a fundamental quantity forming a basis for quantitative description of other effects transferred by electrons.
