Blue and white collar statisticians – a gap revisited

Abstract

This paper is about the need to bridge the gap between mathematical statisticians on the one hand and government statisticians on the other. The paper takes as its starting point Martin B. Wilk's address to the Royal Statistical Society of Canada in which this gap is deplored and certain measures to bridge it are given as example of possible remedies. The paper argues that while there was always a need for the two communities to take advantage of each other's assets and nothing much has been done since the address some ten years ago, recent events and in particular the degree to which some key economic indicators have been called into question by the general public have made this need increasingly more acute. The paper gives examples of such cases and reminds readers of measures taken by Statistics Canada to establish communication between the two kinds of statisticians and proceeds to argue that in addition to such measures at least two more ought to be explored. On the one hand, the International Statistical Institute is the natural venue for the two communities to gather for professional purposes and on the other internal formal training for the so-called “blue collar” statisticians is more necessary than ever.