Affiliations: [a] Bureau of Economic Analysis, Washington, D.C. 20230,
USA
Note: [1] Views are my own, do not represent official positions of either the Bureau of
Economic Analysis or the Department of Commerce, and are not necessarily
those of other staff members of those agencies. A shortened version of this
paper, consisting of a slightly condensed form of the introduction and
sections 2 and 3, appeared in the Papers and Proceedings issue of the
American Economic Review (May, 1990) under the title: “Reviving the
Statistical System: A View From Within”.
Note: [2] For comments on earlier drafts of the paper, I am indebted to Joel Popkin, B.
K. Atrostic, Daniel S. Hamermesh, and Frank C. Wykoff, to F. Thomas Juster
and Richard G. Ruggles, both of whom discussed the paper at the Atlanta
American Economic Association meetings, and, for insights from within the
statistical system, to WilJiam G. Barron, Eva E. Jacobs, Marilyn E. Manser,
and George L. Stelluto of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, William P. Butz
and Charles A. Waite of the Bureau of the Census, Allan H. Young and Robert
P. Parker of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Fritz Scheuren, Statistics
of Income Division, Internal Revenue Service.
