Statistics deals with techniques for collecting and analyzing data that arise in different contexts.

Economic Statistics involves application of these general techniques to economic questions. It involves the analysis of data for economic units – individuals, families, nations, states, etc. etc. Data may span over time or over regions.

Economic Statistics handles special problems that arise in economic data. For example, data revisions, quality changes, measurement of unobserved factors, role of economic policies, etc. are special to economics.

It has developed into a huge field. The first Nobel Prize in Economics was given to Ragner Frisch and Jan Tinbergen for pioneering work in econometrics.

The practice of collecting data for nations dates back to very early civilizations. Data were collected in order to run the country for – taxes, income, imports, exports, financing of wars, and the like.

 
Statistics or Economic Statistics have two broad areas – Descriptive Statistics and Analytical Statistics.

Descriptive Statistics – How to collect, present the data.

Analytical Statistics – How to analyze the data. Often involves new statistical and econometric theories.
 

CONCEPTS:

Population: The universe of units you are interested in. Infinite and Finite population

Frame: A listing of all elements or units in the population is often called a Frame.

Sample: A subset of the population. (TV ratings, unemployment rate etc.)

Census: It is a survey that attempts to include all elements or units in the Frame. (Presidential elections, Census, etc.)

Quantitative and Qualitative Data – Employment status vs. Annual income.

Bias and Error: Inference from a sample

Samplig error - Bias (non-representative sample)

FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION

Class intervals – lower limit and upper limit

Width of a class interval

Frequency distribution shows the number of observations that are included in each of the class intervals.

Histogram

Frequency Polygon

Class mark