...Hsiang-Ke Chao Empirical tests in economics may not decisively confirm or disconfirm a theory. Three cases of studies of consumption function from the 1930s to the early 1970s discussed in this article show that we can interpret economists’ practices as inferences to derive the best model from...

... in this journal, the emphasis here is on the relation between indirect and direct inference pertaining to both methods, and the challenges that contingent valuation, as a method of direct inference, poses to the quality of a questionnaire and the possibilities of educating respondents in making a reasoned choice...

...Mary S. Morgan This article investigates the role played by narrative in drawing inferences from statistics before the adoption of formal inference regimes in economics. Two well-known, and exemplary, cases of informal inference provide the materials. Nikolai Kondratiev’s struggles to make...

...Jeff Biddle Statistical inference is the process of drawing conclusions from samples of statistical data about things not fully described or recorded in those samples. During the 1920s, economists in the United States articulated a general approach to statistical inference that downplayed the value...

...Laetitia Lenel The article investigates the methods and conceptions of statistical inference used in business forecasting in the United States and in Europe in the 1920s. After presenting the methods and arguments used by the members of the Harvard Committee on Economic Research in the first years...

... 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. Revisiting the Past? Big Data, Interwar Statistical...

... , no. 4 : 607 – 52 . Biddle Jeff E. 2017 . “ Statistical Inference in Economics, 1920–1965: Changes in Meaning and Practice .” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 39 , no. 2 : 149 – 74 . Biddle Jeff E. 2021 . Progress through Regression: The Life History...

...Amanar Akhabbar How to infer from uncontrolled data the numerical values of the parameters of an econometric model? In interwar econometrics, this problem of statistical induction was tackled in various ways. Wassily Leontief’s inter-industry method offers a case study of a nonprobabilistic...

... at odds with the common sentiment of the community of statisticians contemporary with them, a community that was highly skeptical about statistical inference grounded on probabilities. Their trajectories, however, differed, diverted by their entanglement with Stanford for Hotelling and Harvard for Wilson...

...Aashish Velkar Index numbers are indirect measurements as well as composite quantities that present particular inferential challenges to the measurer and their intended audiences. The early history of the use of index numbers in British economics (ca. 1860–1914) shows that making inferences using...

...Marcel Boumans This essay discusses Francis Galton’s method of inductive inference where the data are photographs of human faces. His aim of induction was to determine the typical characteristics of the natural class to which the individuals belong by composing the relevant photographs...

...Boris Samuel This article studies the inference procedures used to compute the macroeconomic indicators feeding into the International Monetary Fund’s monitoring and surveillance in Africa since the structural adjustment. In 2005, the IMF launched a procedure to denounce a Mauritanian “misreporting...

... are necessary for inferring complex probabilities, as the ones defined by Bayes's theorem—an enlargement of the frequentist tradition as defined by Venn. The notion of probability is objective; the passage from the objective sphere to the epistemic one requires rules external to the theory of probability...

... and the expertise they possess. First documenting their growth bibliometrically, this article aims to illuminate the origins, content, and contexts of quasi-experimental research designs, which seek natural experiments to justify causal inference. To highlight lines of continuity and discontinuity in the transition...

... theories. Instead, he drew inferences from statistics in case studies to argue that no special economic theory was required in the development space. He packaged these studies as statistical parables to provoke skepticism of development theory among those involved in direct technical assistance...

.... London , series A 139: 343 -48. Fisher , R. A. 1934 . Probability Likelihood and Quantity of Information in the Logic of Uncertain Inference. Proc. Royal Soc. London , series A 146: 1 -8. Fisher , R. A. 1935 . The Logic of Inductive Inference. J. Roy. Stat. Soc . 98 :39-54...

..., 75 Service, 158 regression analysis, 72 73, Breiman, Leo, 182 83 Britain, 251 52. See also Board of 75 76 statistical inference, 76 78 Trade, British weather, 74 75 British Association for the yield per acre, 71 72 Advancement of Science (BAAS), 236 37 Brookmire, James, 142, 145 forecasts, hog...

... presented at the North American summer meeting of the Econometric Society, June. ———. 2007b . The Enigma of Karl Pearson and Bayesian Inference . Paper presented at the Karl Pearson Sesquicentenary Conference, the Royal Statistical Society, March. Bartlett, M. S. 1933 . Probability and Chance...

... University Press. Levi , Isaac 1974 . On Indeterminate Probabilities. Journal of Philosophy 71 : 391 -418. Lindley , Dennis V. 1977 . The Distinction between Inference and Decision. Synthese 36 : 51 -58. Maher , Patrick 1993 . Betting on Theories . Cambridge: Cambridge...