Economic Theory, Statistical Inference, and Economic History*

John R. Meyer and Alfred H. Conrad

The Journal of Economic History, 1957, vol. 17, issue 4, 524-544

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to examine critically the function of theory in historical research and particularly in economic history. the function of We shall take as our starting point the assertion that the historian is not interested simply in collecting facts or true statements about some segment of previous experience. He wants to find causes and to explain what happened. The purpose of this paper is to introduce some of the problems attached to the concepts of historical causality and explanation in a stochastic universe and to suggest how the analytic tools of scientific inference can be applied in economic historiography.

Date: 1957
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