Over the last two decades, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

and other international organisations, in concert with national statistical agencies, have developed

a comprehensive set of international statistical guidelines and recommendations covering almost all

statistical domains.

A cornerstone of these international standards is the set of definitions of data elements and concepts

developed to facilitate the compilation of internationally comparable statistics. Given the role of

international organisations in promoting the use of "standard" concepts and definitions and in

increasing their visibility by making them readily accessible, the OECD has developed the Glossary

of Statistical Terms.

The OECD Glossary contains a comprehensive set of over 6 700 definitions of key terminology,

concepts and commonly used acronyms derived from existing international statistical guidelines and

recommendations. In the main, the definitions are quoted word for word from these sources and a

detailed reference is provided to enable the user to refer to the complete source document to obtain

further information where needed.