Official Statistics—An Introduction

Abstract

Statistics is the science of learning from data. Certainly, it is a modern technology that is part of the standards of today’s information age and is used in a wide array of fields. Statistics is a method to reduce complexity, separate signals from noise and distinguish significant from random. Statistical results are used for knowledge creation and decision-making processes. Statistical institutions are the producers of statistics. Using scientific statistical methods, data is collected and existing data is processed in order to calculate condensed information (i.e. facts), which is made available to the general public in different forms, such as statistical aggregates, graphics, maps, accounts or indicators. This work will be concerned neither with statistics in general nor with the history of theoretical statistics. Rather, the goal is to describe the status quo for a particular area of application, namely ‘official statistics’, based on an analysis of its historical genesis in order then to deploy strategic lines for the near future of this domain. Central to this work is the quality of statistical information. Statistics can only develop a positive enlightenment effect on the condition that their quality is trusted. To ensure long-term trust in statistics, it is necessary to deal with questions of knowledge, quantification and the function of facts in the social debate. The more concrete an answer that can be given to such questions, the more possible it will be to protect statistics against inappropriate expectations and to address false criticism.

To measure for public purposes is rarely so simple as to apply a meter stick casually to an object.

Porter (1995, p. 28)

In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft bestimmt das von historischen, institutionellen und kulturellen Rahmenbedingungen abhängige, an Werten und Normen orientierte, vielfach interessengeleitete Verhalten der Menschen so weitgehend das Geschehen, dass schon eine sinnvolle Begriffsbildung und damit auch die Datenerhebung einen ganz eigenen, geradezu kulturorientierten Zugang erfordern. Das ist das Adäquationsproblem.^*

Grohmann (2012, p. 59)

^*In business and society, people’s behaviour, which depends on historical, institutional and cultural conditions, is oriented towards values and norms and is often guided by interests and determines what happens to such an extent that even the formation of meaningful concepts and thus the collection of data require a very individual, almost culture-oriented approach. This is the problem of adequacy.