Statistics

Statistics is a method for the presentation of historical facts concerning prices and other relevant data of human action. It is not economics and cannot produce economic theorems and theories. The statistics of prices is economic history.

Human Action, p. 348; p. 351

There is no such thing as quantitative economics.

Human Action, p. 348; p. 351

Figures alone prove or disprove nothing. Only the conclusions drawn from the collected material can do this. And these are theoretical.

Socialism, p. 325

The idea that changes in the purchasing power of money may be measured is scientifically untenable.

On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, p. 88

It is not possible even to measure variations in the purchasing power of money.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 257

Statistics is the description in numerical terms of experiences concerning phenomena not subject to regular uniformity. . . . Statistics is therefore a specific method of history.

The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, p. 55

There is an inclination in the United States and in Anglo-Saxon countries generally to overestimate in a quite extraordinary manner the significance of index methods. In these countries, it is entirely overlooked that the scientific exactness of these methods leaves much to be desired, that they can never yield anything more than a rough result at best, and that the question whether one or other method of calculation is preferable can never be solved by scientific means.

The Theory of Money and Credit, pp. 445–46