The First Censuses and the History of Statistics in Mexico

During the viceregal period, the population of New Spain was counted various times. However, censuses, which can be called modern, did not begin until the end of the 18th century. The most important of these is the so-called Revillagigedo census, which led to a very interesting debate: should the population be counted one by one or is it better to calculate it with indirect data? This is a problem that continues to exist in the 21st century. In 1812, under the Constitution of Cádiz, all provinces, including overseas ones, were asked to carry out censuses and produce statistics, which led to a proliferation of figures during the first years of the War of Independence and afterward. From 1826 onward, “deviation from the norm” was registered. It was now important not only to count inhabitants but also to calculate how many criminals there were and how many sick people were registered in the statistics, which led to an effort at quantification. Both public officials and those regarded as “wise,” the scientists of the day, were interested in statistics. The low crime rate in Mexico City compared to Paris led to the assumption of the existence of an exceptional “Mexican type of man” with a very low percentage of criminals. The regularity offered by the “Law of Great Numbers” fascinated the inhabitants of the 19th century. However, in the second half of the century, statistical bulletins contained very grim data. Some doctors concerned with collecting statistics—who were actually public health reformers—produced terrible numbers; the mortality in Mexico City was horrifying. In order to verify and compare data, there was a great demand to create a specialized central office. This was founded in 1882 and was given the task of carrying out censuses at the end of the 19th century, something done successfully.

The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900

This book explores the history of statistics from the field's origins in the nineteenth century through to the factors that produced the burst of modern statistical innovation in the early twentieth century. The book shows that statistics was not developed by mathematicians and then applied to the sciences and social sciences. Rather, the field came into being through the efforts of social scientists, who saw a need for statistical tools in their examination of society. Pioneering statistical physicists and biologists James Clerk Maxwell, Ludwig Boltzmann, and Francis Galton introduced statistical models to the sciences by pointing to analogies between their disciplines and the social sciences. A new preface looks at how the book has remained relevant since its initial publication, and considers the current place of statistics in scientific research.

Making It Count

In 1949, at the end of a long period of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new People's Republic of China was how much they did not know. The government of one of the world's largest nations was committed to fundamentally reengineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having almost no reliable statistical data about their own country. This book is the history of efforts to resolve this “crisis in counting.” The book explores the choices made by political leaders, statisticians, academics, statistical workers, and even literary figures in attempts to know the nation through numbers. It shows that early reliance on Soviet-inspired methods of exhaustive enumeration became increasingly untenable in China by the mid-1950s. Unprecedented and unexpected exchanges with Indian statisticians followed, as the Chinese sought to learn about the then-exciting new technology of random sampling. These developments were overtaken by the tumult of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), when probabilistic and exhaustive methods were rejected and statistics was refashioned into an ethnographic enterprise. By acknowledging Soviet and Indian influences, the book not only revises existing models of Cold War science but also globalizes wider developments in the history of statistics and data. Anchored in debates about statistics and its relationship to state building, the book offers fresh perspectives on China's transition to socialism.

Demographic picture of the Polish lands before the outbreak of the First World War

In 2018, Statistics Poland, the publisher of statistical yearbooks celebrated its100th anniversary. The purpose of this work is to present a book which is the immediate predecessor of the Polish statistical yearbooks. The work, published in 1915, entitled ”Polish Statistics”, was elaborated by Adam Krzyżanowski and Kazimierz Władysław Kumaniecki, eminent Polish statisticians and economists. Based on this work, we can reconstruct the demographic picture of the Polish lands before the outbreak of the First World War, which initiates the analysis of the process of independence restoration through demo-graphic and socio-economic situation of the country. The number of population on historical Polish lands around the year 1910 is shown. At the same time, the estimates of the number of Polish population on these lands with the information on the scale of emigration and vital statistics is presented. Such information contributes to the knowledge of the history of the rebirth of Polish independence and the history of statistics.

Does official statistics influence economic growth of a country?

The relationship between statistics and economic growth of a country,dating back to ancient times, was always strong. With no doubt, it may be assumed that the development of statistics have an influence on the economic growth. Among the benefits of properly working official statistics system, including surveys and education, there is also the increased production efficiency and rapid growth of innovativeness. The aim of the article is to present the importance of official statistics for the economic growth at national and regional level. The study is based on literature review concerning history of statistics and achievements of its fathers in selected countries as well as on Statistics Poland data regarding economic growth in Poland in the regional scope.