The Early Life of Harold Hotelling

Abstract

While the names Gauss , Galton and Fisher may not be well known to finance students of statistics, the name Hotelling often elicits at least some acknowledgment. This is perhaps because he helped establish statistics, economics and econometrics from a distinctly American perspective. Fisher was experiencing resistance in England over his theories that defied the powers that be in Britain’s statistical community. America was more receptive. Its embracement of Fisherian statistics caused the center of mass of the statistics world to migrate across the ocean. The primary proponent was an American mathematician and economist whose ancestors made the same migration as founders of America’s first colonies.