Volume 2, Number 2 · March 5, 1964
Numbers Game
By Peter Wiles
On The Accuracy of Economic Observations (second edition)
by Oskar Morgenstern
Princeton, 322 pp., $6.50
A book that attacks habits ingrained in a whole profession, implicitly threatens several academic and civil service reputations, and names a few names is likely to arouse passions. The reviewer should then state his bias and interest. I have read this attack on the use of statistics with tranquility, indeed with Schadenfreude. An anxious glance reveals that my name is not in the index, my speciality (Sovietology) but lightly touched upon. Indeed this is no accident: the Sovietologist is by hard experience wary of all statistics; he customarily footnotes each single one, shows his working, records his inaccuracies and makes samokritika by publicly revising his mistakes. Mr. Morgenstern has little, though not nothing, to teach him. Indeed he could also learn.
Review, 1280 words
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