Econometrics is a discipline concerned with the application of statistics and mathematics to various problems in economics and economic theory. This term literally means “economic measurement”. A central task is quantification (measurement) of various qualitative concepts of economic theory – like demand, supply, propensity to spend, etc.
In contrast to many other research areas using statistics, e.g. psychometrics, controlled experiments are usually impossible in econometrics and, hence, data are treated as observations – “as is”. This peculiarity determines the spectrum of the statistical methods used in econometrics: regression analysis, time series analysis, cross-sectional analysis, panel analysis. The design of experiments and related approaches are almost of no use.