Quantifying the World: UN Ideas and Statistics

Good data, Michael Ward argues, serve to enhance a perception about life
as well as to deepen an understanding of reality. This history of the UN's role in
fostering international statistics in the postwar period demonstrates how statistics
have shaped our understanding of the world. Drawing on well over 40 years of
experience working as a statistician and economist in more than two dozen countries
around the world, Ward traces the evolution of statistical ideas and how they have
responded to the needs of policy while unraveling the question of why certain data
were considered important and why other data and concerns were not. The book
explores the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of the UN's statistical
work and how each dimension has provided opportunities for describing the well-being
of the world community. Quantifying the World also reveals some of the missed
opportunities for pursuing alternative models.