National social statistics have become one of the pervasive institutions of modern economics and politics. However, less is known about the origins of national accounting and the disagreements over its fundamental purpose and design. Modern national accounts emerged in attempts by German...

Why do economists believe what they believe? Why do they not all believe the same things? Our answer to these questions revolves around the nature, variety, and uses of authority in economics. Our data are the various frameworks that economists, knowingly and unknowingly, employ to formulate...