This book is an essay in what is derogatorily called "literary economics, " as opposed to mathematical economics, econometrics, or (embracing them both) the "new economic history." A man does what he can, and in the more elegant - one is tempted to say "fancier" - techniques I am, as one who received his formation in the 1930s, untutored. A colleague has offered to provide a mathematical model to decorate the work. It might be useful to some readers, but not to me. Catastrophe mathematics, dealing with such events as falling off a height, is a new branch of the discipline, I am told, which has yet to demonstrate its rigor or usefulness. I had better wait. Econometricians among my friends tell me that rare events such as panics cannot be dealt with by the normal techniques of regression, but have to be introduced exogenously as "dummy variables." The real choice open to me was whether to follow relatively simple statistical procedures, with an abundance of charts and tables, or not. In the event, I decided against it. For those who yearn for numbers, standard series on bank reserves, foreign trade, commodity prices, money supply, security prices, rate of interest, and the like are fairly readily available in the historical statistics. Charles P. Kindleberger
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Statistically speaking, there is a 65 percent chance that the love of your life is having an affair. Be very suspicious. - Scott Dikkers

  2. A recent survey or North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey. - Banksy

  3. I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys--but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly! - Richard Feynman

  4. All statistics have outliers. - Nenia Campbell

  5. There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics. - Benjamin Disraeli

More Quotes By Charles P. Kindleberger
  1. Money is a public good; as such, it lends itself to private exploitation.

  2. This book is an essay in what is derogatorily called "literary economics, " as opposed to mathematical economics, econometrics, or (embracing them both) the "new economic history." A man does what he can, and in the more elegant - one is tempted to say "fancier"...

  3. In Chapter 5 we consider swindles and defalcations. It happens that crashes and panics often are precipitated by the revelation of some misfeasance, malfeasance, or malversation (the corruption of officials) engendered during the mania. It seems clear from the historical record that swindles are a...

Related Topics