The Union of Numbers : international statistical harmonization and the European communities 1950-1979

Abstract

This thesis analyses how ongoing European economic integration affected practices of international statistical harmonization at the level of the European Communities between the 1950s and late 1970s. This study is made up of two parts. The first part analyzes the history of the Statistical Offices of the European Communities and its predecessor, the Statistical Division of the European Community of Coal and Steel within the context of ongoing European integration. The second part analyses and assesses the activities and contributions of the SOEC through three different case studies in the fields of household budget research, international frameworks for national accounting, and surveys into the structure of agricultural holdings. Through these analyses, this thesis argues that international statistical harmonization at the level of the European Communities ran parallel to the development of the European Communities themselves both with regard to the statistical subfields that the EC engaged with as well as the strategies through which the EC and SOEC engaged with them. Furthermore, this thesis shows that throughout the 1960s and 1970s the SOEC contributed to international statistical harmonization by manifesting itself as a hub between the DGs of the European Communities, national statistical offices, and international statistical offices.