Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T03:49:36.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Statisticians and the History of Economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Stephen Stigler
Stephen Stigler
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, University of Chicago, 5734 University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Over twenty years ago, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Royal Statistical Society about the life and work in statistics of Francis Ysidro Edgeworth. In a preamble to that talk, I commented upon some similarities between Edgeworth and an even earlier scientist, Daniel Bernoulli, who lived from 1700 to 1782. One similarity I mentioned would be so well-known to this audience that it scarcely bears repetition: Both Edgeworth and Bernoulli were important in the histories of both economics and statistics. Of Edgeworth's work in economics I need not comment—I expect that his work on taxation, price theory, international trade, and index numbers is familiar to many in this audience. Edgeworth's work in statistics was no less important in at least four ways: (1) He was an astute and original philosopher of the application of probability and quantitative thinking in social science; (2) he had sufficient mathematical genius to situate Galton's concept of correlation in the framework of the multivariate normal distribution, thereby pointing the way for Karl Pearson to develop correlational analysis—Edgeworth even has a claim on being the inventor of the product moment correlation coefficient; (3) he pioneered the exploration of many topics, such as variance component estimation, the theory of maximum likelihood, and series expansions for sampling distributions; and (4) he had an amazing ability to explore the limits of statistical concepts by constructing subtle and surprising counterexamples to widely accepted truths.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 2002 , pp. 155 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bicquilley, Charles François. 1804. Théorie élémentaire du commerce. Toul: Chez la Veuve Carez. Reprinted in a critical edition with commentary by Pierre Crepel, Lyon: Aléas, 1995.Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1985. Great Economists Since Keynes. London: Wheatsheaf Books.Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1986. Great Economists Before Keynes. London: Wheatsheaf Books.Google Scholar
Canard, Nicolas-François. 1802. Moyens de perfectionner le jury. Moulins: Chez P. Vidalin.Google Scholar
Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro. 1885. “Methods of Statistics.” Jubilee Volume of the (Royal) Statistical Society, pp. 181–217.Google Scholar
Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro. 1896. “Bemerkungen über die Kritik meiner ‘Methoden der Statistik’ von Dr. v. Bortkewitsch.” Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik (Third Series) 11: 274–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro. 1922. “Review of A Treatise on Probability by John Maynard Keynes.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 85: 107–13.Google Scholar
Fisher, Ronald A. 1922. “Review of Mr. Keynes' Treatise on Probability.” Eugenics Review 14: 46–50.Google Scholar
Jefferys, Harold. 1948. Theory of Probability, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keynes, John Maynard. 1921. A Treatise on Probability. London: Macmillan. Reprinted as The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol. VIII. New York: St. Martin's Press, for the Royal Economic Society, 1973.Google Scholar
Klein, Judy L. 1997. Statistical Visions in Time: A History of Time Series Analysis 1662–1938. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McCann, Charles R. Jr., ed. 1996. F. Y. Edgeworth: Writings in Probability, Statistics and Economics, vols. I–III. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K. 1968. “The Matthew Effect in Science.” Reprinted in The Sociology of Science, edited by Storer, N.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Mirowski, Philip, ed. 1994. Edgeworth on Chance, Economic Hazard, and Statistics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Morgan, Mary S. 1990. The History of Econometric Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosteller, Frederick and Tukey, John W.. 1977. Data Analysis and Regression: A Second Course in Statistics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Skidelsky, Robert. 1983. John Maynard Keynes. Volume One: Hopes Betrayed, 1883–1920. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. and Friedland, Claire. 1989. Chronicles of Economics Birthday Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Stigler, Stephen M. 1978. “Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, Statistician (with discussion).” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, 141: 287–322. Reprinted (without discussion) in Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) and Francis Edgeworth (1845–1926), edited by Mark Blaug. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stigler, Stephen M. 1980. “An Edgeworth Curiosum.” Annals of Statistics 8: 931–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stigler, Stephen M. 1986. The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stigler, Stephen M. 1999. Statistics on the Table. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Edwin Bidwell. 1923. “Keynes on Probability.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 07 1923, pp. 319–22.Google Scholar