This book is intended as a textbook for a first course in applied statistics for students of economics, public administration and business administration. A limited knowledge of mathematics and - in one single chapter - some knowledge of elementary matrix algebra is required for understanding the text. Complicated mathematical proofs are avoided and the explanations are based on intuition and numerical examples. The aim of this book is to enable the student to understand the reasoning underlying a statistical analysis and to apply statistical methods to problems likely to be met within the fields of economics, public administration and business administration. The topics covered by the book are: - methods for exploratory data analysis - probability theory and standard statistical distributions - statistical inference theory - and three main areas of application: regression analysis, survey sampling and contingency tables. The treatment of exploratory data analysis, regression analysis and the analysis of contingency tables are based on the most recent theoretical developments in these areas. Most of the examples have never been presented before in English textbooks.