This paper reviews changes over time in the meaning that economists in the US attributed to the phrase “statistical inference”, as well as changes in how inference was conducted. Prior to WWII, leading statistical economists rejected probability theory as a source of measures and procedures...

We take a fresh look at Theil's BLUS residuals and ask why they have gone out of fashion. All our simulation experiments indicate that tests based on BLUS residuals have higher power than those based on the more popular recursive residuals, even in those cases (structural breaks) where intuition...

This note is a sketch of what could be the basis for a theory of applied statistics. Such a theory is needed to help statistics become more relevant, with significant impact and innovative developments. To achieve this goal, statisticians need to get involved in new activities within the...

As I document using evidence from a journal data repository that I manage, the datasets used in empirical work are getting larger. When we use very large datasets, it can be dangerous to rely on standard methods for statistical inference. In addition, we need to worry about computational issues....

Very large data sets in economics are already available and will soon become commonplace. The econometric techniques currently in use may not be relevant and new techniques will have to be devised. It can be argued that most tests of significance, linear models, assumptions of normality, and...

Philosophy of current knowledge distinguishes facts from values. It maintains that facts areobjective, indisputable, universally verifiable, and do not require to persuade. Since rhetoricis persuasion it is assumed to be deceptive and overlook reality. Therefore, statistics in itscurrent form...

We argue that frequentist hypothesis testing - the dominant statistical evaluation paradigm in empirical research - is fundamentally unsuited for analysis of the nonexperimental data prevalent in economics and other social sciences. Frequentist tests comprise incompatible repeated sampling...

The intuition behind linear regression can be difficult for students to grasp particularly without a readily accessible context. This paper uses basketball statistics to demonstrate the purpose of linear regression and to explain how to interpret its results. In particular, the student will...

I comment on the controversy between McCloskey & Ziliak and Hoover & Siegler on statistical versus economic significance, in the March 2008 issue of the Journal of Economic Methodology. I argue that while McCloskey & Ziliak are right in emphasizing 'real error', i.e. non-sampling error that...