ABSTRACT
The English verb “to impute” comes from the Latin imputo, which means to reckon, attribute, make account of, charge, ascribe. In the Bible, the word “impute” is a translation of the Hebrew verb hāshab, which appears about 120 times in the Old Testament in various meanings (Renn, 2005). The noun “imputation” has a long history in taxation. The concept “imputed income” was used in the 19th century to denote income derived from property, such as land and housing. In the statistical literature, imputation means “filling in the data.” Imputation in this sense is first mentioned in 1957 in the work of the U.S. Census Bureau (US Bureau of the Census, 1957).
