Economic statistics is a topic in applied statistics that concerns the collection, processing, compilation, dissemination, and analysis of economic data. It is also common to call the data themselves 'economic statistics', but for this usage see economic data. The data of concern to economic statistics may include those of an economy of region, country, or group of countries. Economic statistics may also refer to a subtopic of official statistics for data produced by official organizations (e.g. national statistical services, intergovernmental organizations such as United Nations, European Union or OECD, central banks, ministries, etc.). Analyses within economic statistics both make use of and provide the empirical data needed in economic research, whether descriptive or econometric. They are a key input for decision making as to economic policy.
The subject includes statistical analysis of topics and problems in microeconomics, macroeconomics, business, finance, forecasting, data quality, and policy evaluation. It also includes such considerations as what data to collect in order to quantify some particular aspect of an economy and of how best to collect in any given instance.
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or statistics:
“Just as men must give up economic control when their wives share the responsibility for the family’s financial well-being, women must give up exclusive parental control when their husbands assume more responsibility for child care.”
—Augustus Y. Napier (20th century)
“We ask for no statistics of the killed,
For nothing political impinges on
This single casualty, or all those gone,
Missing or healing, sinking or dispersed,
Hundreds of thousands counted, millions lost.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)