Revisiting the Past?: Big Data, Interwar Statistical Economics, and the Long History of Statistical Inference in the United States

This article explores the recent history of the data revolution in economics, arguing that many of its features parallel the vision for statistical economics championed by Wesley Mitchell during the interwar period. Seeing the data revolution as kin to Mitchell’s hopes for statistical economics suggests a new long narrative about the history of statistical inference in the United States, one in which theory-driven econometrics and heavy reliance on mathematical probability appear as interludes rather than stable endpoints.