Vital statistics generated through civil registration systems are the major source of continuous monitoring of births and deaths over time. The usefulness of vital statistics depends on their quality. In the second paper in this Series we propose a comprehensive and practical framework for...

Imports are increasingly becoming a significant source of Japan's pork supply. Japan's share of imports to total consumption increased from 9 percent in 1980 to 24 percent in 1990, reaching a maximum of 44 percent in 1996. Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) safeguard provisions for pork,...

This paper provides a summary measure of the possible new commitments in the area of market access undertaken by the European Union and the United States, using the Trade Restrictiveness Index (TRI) as the tariff aggregator. Indicators such as the TRI, based on welfare theory, integrate economic...