Turning Qualitative into Quantitative Evidence: A Well-Used Method Made Explicit

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Turning Qualitative into Quantitative Evidence: A Well-Used Method Made Explicit

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Carus A.W.
Ogilvie, S.

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Sheilagh Ogilvie

Abstract

Many historians now reject quantitative methods as inappropriate to understanding past societies. It is argued here, however, that no sharp distinction between qualitative and quantitative concepts can be drawn, as almost any concept used to describe a past society is implicitly quantitative. Many recent advances in understanding have been achieved by deriving quantitative evidence from qualitative evidence, and using it jointly and dialectically with the qualitative evidence from which it is derived. Its reliability as quantitative evidence can be improved by indexing it against other quantitative evidence from the same community or population during the same period. We suggest that this triangulation method can be extended to many apparently qualitative types of sources that have not previously been used in this way. The potential of turning qualitative into quantitative evidence, then, despite its successes over the past decades, has hardly begun to be exploited.

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Paper provided by Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge in its series Cambridge Working Papers in Economics with number 0512.

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Length: 45
Date of creation: Mar 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0512

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
B40 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - General
C10 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: General - - - General
C80 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - General
J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
N01 - Economic History - - General - - - Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods
N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - General, International, or Comparative
N90 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - General, International, or Comparative

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2005-03-13 (All new papers)
NEP-HPE-2005-03-13 (History & Philosophy of Economics)
NEP-PKE-2005-03-13 (Post Keynesian Economics)

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