“Statistics began as the systematic study of quantitative facts about the state.”

Source: The Emergence Of Probability, 1975, Chapter 12, Political Arithmetic, p. 102.

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Ian Hacking16

Canadian philosopher 1936

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“An important object of the Journal should be the publication of papers dealing with attempts at statistical verification of the laws of economic theory, and further the publication of papers dealing with the purely abstract problems of quantitative economics, such as problems in the quantitative definition of the fundamental concepts of economics and problems in the theory of economic equilibrium.
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Frisch (1927). as quoted in: Bjerkholt, Olav, and Duo Qin. A Dynamic Approach to Economic Theory: The Yale Lectures of Ragnar Frisch. Routledge, 2010: About "Oekonometrika"
1920