Economics and Politics Sculpting the Colombian Economy: the Case of National Accounts

History is a non-linear process, full of contingent events that set the conditions which brought us, and our institutions, to where we are today. This paper examines two possible conditions in Colombia that may have influenced the creation of the National Administrative Department of Statistics: a concentrated centralist political power and a growing participation of economists in state positions. This work provides a historical and theoretical framework grounded on Alain Desrosières’ analysis of the implication of an autocratic political power and the need for national accounts on the interaction of economists with the real world, based on abstract concepts. Likewise, I examine some historical events in the light of Desrosières’ analysis that occurred in the early years of Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics, specifically, the ‘50s and ‘60s decades. This paper concludes that both a concentrated centralist political power and a growing economists’ enrollment in positions of power may have served as conditions fostering the appearance of the department in charge of the Colombian national accounts.