Studying Economic Data and Processing It Is Not “Doing Economics”
2024-02-05
Most mainstream economists believe the application of quantitative methods on historical data can explain the state of the economy. Others such as Ludwig von Mises held that the data utilized by economists is a historical display, which by itself cannot provide the facts of economics. Ludwig von Mises wrote, “Experience of economic history is always the experience of complex phenomena. It can never convey knowledge of the kind the experimenter abstracts from a laboratory experiment.”
To make sense of historical data, economists must have a theory that stands on its own and does not originate from the data itself. Even economists who call themselves “practical” must employ a theory to make sense of historical data. Even seeking correlations between the various pieces of historical data is