Originally published in 1960 and 1966. This is an elementary introduction to the sources of economic statistics and their uses in answering economic questions. No mathematical knowledge is assumed, and no mathematical symbols are used.

The book shows - by asking and answering a number of typical questions of applied economics - what the most useful statistics are, where they are found, and how they are to be interpreted and presented. The reader is introduced to the major British, European and American official sources, to the social accounts, to index numbers and averaging, and to elementary aids to inspection such as moving averages and scatter diagrams.