ABSTRACT
Economic statistics are indispensable in actors’ deliberations about the future. They are data supporting actors’ mental models of the economy. But might they also play other roles? This chapter discusses three ways that economic statistics relate to expectations, using price index numbers as an illustration. Price indices can be data and inform expectations about future inflation. In a reversal of the causal chain, expectations about inflation may condition the credibility of price index numbers as representations of economic reality. Finally, index prices also play a coordinating role. Written into collective wage settlements or into the mandates of central banks, index numbers have helped to hold together social relations and contribute to making the future less uncertain by binding the behavior of actors. The history of price indices and their uses allows us to appreciate the value of public numbers, statistics that by virtue of careers of contention and publicity hold a privileged status in our polities and economies.
