Statistical Inference

Abstract

Economic facts are typically established by means of statistical inference, which is concerned with how data supporting general claims about the world deduced from economic models should be calculated. Normally statistical inference proceeds by either estimation (point or interval) or testing. There is no general agreement on how statistical inference should be performed, but in some common situations there is good agreement about the numerical results. Of the three main schools – named after Fisher; Neyman, Pearson and Wald (NPW); and Bayes – the Bayesian alone is logically coherent.