econometrics

noun

econo·met·rics i-ˌkä-nə-ˈme-triks

ē-ˌkä-

plural in form but singular in construction

: the application of statistical methods to the study of economic data and problems

econometric

i-ˌkä-nə-ˈme-trik

ē-ˌkä-

adjective

econometrically

i-ˌkä-nə-ˈme-tri-k(ə-)lē

ē-ˌkä-

adverb

econometrician

i-ˌkä-nə-mə-ˈtri-shən

ē-ˌkä-

noun

econometrist

i-ˌkä-nə-ˈme-trist

ē-ˌkä-

noun

Examples of econometrics in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Madansky taught courses in statistics, econometrics and a class on great books in business, and he eventually was named to an endowed professorship, the H.G.B. Alexander professorship of business administration. —

Bob Goldsborough, Chicago Tribune, 17 Jan. 2023 Use it to explore a wide range of data sets from around the world and download publications, maps,info-graphics, and reports on air quality, emissions, health, climate change, econometrics, and so forth. —

Citizen Science Salon, Discover Magazine, 10 Oct. 2015 The Harvard grad researches econometrics, empirical macroeconomics and finance. —

Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 4 Oct. 2022 Gerard Sierksma, an econometrics professor whose work focuses on mathematically optimizing logistical problems, saw the federation’s predicament and emailed the technical director before the 2010 Olympics. —

New York Times, 1 Feb. 2022 But econometrics and survey data paint an incomplete picture of the situation. —

Samuel Goldman, The Week, 28 Jan. 2022 Vu connected Stevenson, whose work focuses on farming technology, with Thoa Bach, a Vietnamese economics masters student at the University of Tokyo who could help the team with both language and econometrics skills. —

Nathan Dicamillo, Quartz, 20 Oct. 2021 The research was commissioned by the Rhode Island Hospitality Association and completed by students enrolled in Salve Regina University business professor Samuel Sacco’s introduction to econometrics class. —

From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 2 Sep. 2021 The study was commissioned by the Rhode Island Hospitality Association and completed by students enrolled in Salve Regina University business professor Samuel Sacco’s introduction to econometrics class, The Newport Daily News reported Tuesday. —

BostonGlobe.com, 25 Aug. 2021

Word History

Etymology

blend of economics and -metrics, a re-formation of earlier econometry, after French économétrie

Note: The term econometrics is closely associated with the founding of the Econometric Society in December, 1929, by the Norwegian economist Ragnar Frisch and others, and with the journal Econometrica, which began publication in 1933. The words econometric, econometrics, etc., are all dependent on French économétrie, which was introduced by Ragnar Frisch in the paper "Sur un problème d'économie pure," Norsk Matematisk Forenings skrifter, series I, no. 16 (1926), pp. 1-40. The French word was translated into English as econometry in a review of the paper published in 1927 (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, vol. 90, no. 1, pp. 146-47). Curiously, the word econometry appeared earlier, apparently in a nonce usage, in A.R. Crathorne, "The Course in Statistics in the Mathematics Department," American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 33, no. 4, April, 1926, p. 186 ("Biologists and anthropologists have long recognized the principle implied here and have invented the words biometry and anthropometry. We might ask the economists to introduce the word econometry, but it would be very difficult to argue them out of their rather well grounded historical claim to some share in the word statistics."). Still earlier, the German word Oekonometrie was apparently coined—though with a much more restricted sense—by the Polish banker and economist Paweł Ciompa (Grundrisse einer Oekonometrie und die auf der Nationalökonomie aufgebaute natürliche Theorie der Buchhaltung, Lemberg [Lwów/L'viv], 1910), though Ragnar Frisch was not aware of Ciompa's word (see Frisch, "Note on the Term 'Econometrics'," Econometrica, vol. 4, issue 1 [January, 1936], p. 95). As a product of word formation, econometrics/econometry (and their French and German predecessors) can be regarded as either a blend (as indicated above) or as a truncation of economy, with the second -o- unetymologically taken as the combining vowel.