RODOLFO BENINI: ALCUNI SUOI CONTRIBUTI ALLA STATISTICA

IN OCCASIONE DEI 150 ANNI DALLA NASCITA

Abstract

For the first time in Italy, thanks to the contributions of Rodolfo Benini, Statistics became an autonomous discipline, finally released from economical, demographical and social sciences to which was still assimilated. The rigor and the technical refinement of Benini’s analysis justify the importance attributed to his statistical contributions, and support the fact that he has been recognised by Corrado Gini as the «first rounded Italian statistician». Starting from the interpretation by Marcello Boldrini of his «tre mirabili opere di sistemazione», I will deepen some of the main themes linked to the statistical methodology addressed by Benini: multiple linear regression, indexes of attraction and repulsion and the distribution of economical variables. I will conclude discussing his relationship with Pareto, whose law Benini first verified on income and later extended to other economical variables.