A Student's Guide to American Federal Government Statistics
为经济学学生介绍美国联邦统计资料系列的主要元素，以制造业普查为起点，探讨先验理论与后验理论的关系，以及数据与构念在不同经济分析领域的转换使用。
THE RELATIONSHIPS between a priori theory and a posteriori theorizing are numerically large and causally complex. Few economists use only one method, yet relatively little has been written recently on the subject of economic methodology or the study of the criteria one uses for accepting principles. This article is a survey for economics students of the principal elements of our federal statistical data series. The point of departure is the census of manufacturers and thus the body of the article, even though some historical reference is employed, is neither a chronological listing of the growth of data collection nor an analysis of the perception of the problems of and improvements in statistical technique. Suffice it to stress the themes 1) that constructs (such as stock vs. flow) were perceived before extensive data were collected, 2) that some constructs (like the consumption function) proved empirically to be so unstable (or in other cases so hard to estimate) that they were neglected in favor of other a priori constructs, and 3) that data and constructs collected for one area of analysis of the economy are frequently converted for use in other areas of the economy (agricultural production functions are a useful example).