ABSTRACT

The preceding chapters should have convinced anyone of the uniqueness and the novelty of the measurements developed by governments over the last fifty years or more. But it should also be shown how the official surveys have limitations of their own. The next two chapters are devoted to consideration of these limitations. The present chapter considers the way limitations were treated by official statisticians themselves. Examining footnotes to the statistical tables provides us with the material to this end: the footnotes make the limitations visible.