Contributors to this special supplement explore the history of statistical inference, led by two motivations. One was the belief that John Maynard Keynes’s distinction between the descriptive and the inductive function of statistical research provided a fruitful framework for understanding empirical research practices. The other was an aim to fill a gap in the history of economics by exploring an important part of the story left out of existing histories of empirical analysis in economics—namely “sinful” research practices that did not meet or point towards currently reigning standards of scientific research.

Jeff E. Biddle is Professor of Economics at Michigan State University.

Marcel Boumans is Professor in the History of Economics at Utrecht University.