Econometrics and Psychometrics: Rivers Out of Biometry.

Abstract The period 1895–1925 saw the origins and establishment of the fields that came to be called econometrics and psychometrics. I consider what these fields owed to biometry—the statistical approach to the biological problems of evolution—and make some comparisons between all three. I emphasize developments in biology and psychology, for these are less familiar to historians of econometrics. These developments are interesting to contemplate, for the biometricians and psychometricians were a