\emph{The papers in this issue}} focus on \emph{Statistics Describing the Information Society}. Most of the papers originate from presentations given during the IAOS Satellite Meeting on Statistics for the Information Society, Tokyo 2001 in connection with the ISI Session in Seoul 2001. However, the authors have further developed and up-dated their papers. The aim of this special issue of the ISR is very much the same as the goal of the above mentioned IAOS Satellite Meeting, i.e. to feature research and studies, development of statistics, statistical methodologies and frameworks, and other related matters concerning the evolving \emph{Information Society}. Key questions are: (1) How does the Information Society challenge statistics? (2) How to describe the Information Society? How far or deep have we entered into the Information Society? (3) And looking ahead, what kind of indicators do we need to monitor and develop the Information Society from economic, societal, and environmental points of view? The papers presented here, seven altogether, aim at summarising the main attempts and efforts made to establish statistical frameworks and programs as well as various statistics themselves describing the Information Society. Attention has been paid to the geographical coverage of the submissions. The development and the typical features of the Information Society are explained. Future development plans for statistics on the Information Society and related issues are presented. Definitions and analysis of key-indicators for monitoring the Information Society are introduced. Some cross-national comparisons are provided. One important question dealt with is how to develop official statistics to properly describe the evolving Information Society. \emph{Heli Jeskanen-Sundstr\"om (Finland)} gives an overview of the ongoing work in the field of statistics relating to the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impact. She introduces three slightly different approaches with different emphasis on describing the emergence and diffusion of ICT and the respective economic and social change. You may call them the indicators approach, the new economy approach and the intellectual capital approach. Andrew Wyckoff (OECD) presents the OECD efforts undertaken to address the measurement and policy challenges posed by the Information Society. The OECD has acted as a forum for discussion of policies regarding the information society for over 20-years, producing guidelines and recommendations in areas such as privacy of personal information, computer security, cryptography, regulatory reform of communications, and most recently on-line consumer protection and the taxation of e-commerce. Jozef Olenski (Poland) deals with the fundamental topic of citizens' right to information and the duties of a democratic state in modern IT environment. Fred Gault and Greg Peterson (Canada) contribute with Canadian experiences. Statistics Canada has measured the use of information and communication technologies for almost 15 years in industry and more recently in households and it has developed a body of knowledge on the effects of the use of these technologies. Gault and Peterson provide examples of ICT use in private and public institutions, in households, and by individuals. They also illustrate the consequent development of electronic commerce and of other uses of the Internet and concludes with some implications for the development of official statistics in light of policy requirements. Tim Power (Australia) shares the experiences of development in official statistics on the adoption of ICT in Australia. He outlines the ICT statistical developments that the Australian Bureau of Statistics has undertaken over recent years. The developments have been on both the supply side (ICT industry) and the demand side (use of IT by sector). One example of recent developments in household collections has been the inclusion of IT use questions in the 2001 Census of Population and Housing. An Internet activity survey is run every six months allowing also for detailed regional information. A major new development is the compilation of an ICT satellite account. Hiroyuki Kitada (Japan) gives an overview of the present situation of Japanese official statistics related to ICT. In addition, he highlights some problems related to the necessity and measurability of the appropriate preparation of ICT indicators and e-commerce-related statistics. In Japan, more than 40 kinds of official statistical surveys including questions related to ICT have been conducted in the past five years. To grasp the new development in IT, a new compendium on ICT entitled ``IT Indicators in Japan'' was compiled in 2001. Most importantly, the 11th revision of the Standard Industrial Classification for Japan (JSIC) was published by the Statistical Standards Department, Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (MPHPT) in March 2002 to cope with the change of economy and society including the development of ICT. ``The Internet has resulted in an unprecedented proliferation of Information, Communication, Knowledge and Entertainment (ICKE)'' states Ramasamy Ramachandran (Malaysia). He introduces a framework which adopts a socio-technological approach, premised on contemporary information and knowledge development as an integral of the people and technology dimensions. To illustrate the workability of the proposed model, Ramachandran identifies some parameters and variables in the current statistical system, and highlights some new data generated via the Internet Subscriber Study and ICT Exposition Visitor Study. All illustrations refer to Malaysian data. {\bf Milestones in developing statistics for the Information Society} appear as follows. Technological changes and the increased utilisation of electronics and telecommunications contribute to the availability of information in all industrialised countries. The aim of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) programme published in the United States in the early 1990s was to implement ``a seamless web of communications networks, computers, databases and consumer electronics that would put vast amounts of information at users' fingertips''. This development process was also known as the Information Superhighway. Corresponding programmes were also implemented in Canada under the name Information Highway and in the European Union as part of its Information Society programme. As European responses to the challenge from North America, the European Commission published the White Book `European Commission: Growth, competitiveness, and employment---the challenges and ways forward into the 21st century' in December 1993, and the Bangemann report `Europe and the global information society' in 1994. Later on, the Europe 2002 and 2005 benchmarking indicators put new challenges to European statistical institutes. It was soon realised that official statistics were needed for the follow-up of action plans and strategies. National statistical agencies started to work on their national data needs for monitoring the Information Society. In addition, regional co-operation between the Nordic statistical institutes, for example, for developing the methodology and guidelines on how to measure the Information Society started fairly early. As a result, the Nordic Countries published the first comparable results on the ICT sector in 1998. In 1997, the OECD decided to restart its work on the development of information society statistics and convened the first meeting of the Statistical Panel (the ICCP Statistical Panel on GII-GIS), which was the following year transformed into a permanent working party (WPIIS, Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society). From the very beginning, the WPIIS considered the lack of basic, commonly accepted statistical definitions on the scope of these new statistics as the most urgent development need. Therefore, the WPIIS centred its work on classifications. As a result, the activity-based OECD definition of the ICT sector was accepted in 1998. After that, the definitions for electronic commerce were agreed on a harmonised basis and the model questionnaires for surveying ICT in enterprises and households/individuals were approved. The very first harmonised publication on the ICT sector, `Measuring the ICT sector', was published in 2000. Since 1998, issues related to the Information Society statistics have become permanent items on the Voorburg Group's (United Nations City Group on the development of services statistics) agenda. Special attention has been paid to the development of a model questionnaire regarding the ICT use of businesses. {\bf Demands for ICT equipment and services is driven by the growth of metropolitan markets.} According to recent OECD research (Information and Communications Technologies in Urban Areas, July 2002), ICT has clearly been developed, tested, produced, and applied predominantly in urban areas, well ahead of other geographical areas (rural areas and remote regions). ICT clusters or districts have been established primarily in cities and urban areas. Urban homes are more connected than rural ones. Yet, there are not many studies available which look at urban issues relating to ICT diffusion. Likewise, there are only few comparative urban studies and even fewer comparative urban statistics attempts available concerning ICT development. From the point of view of cities and urban areas it would be valuable to know the impact of ICT on economic growth, social cohesion, quality of life and sustainability. Use of e-government activities is also an important area of interest, because in cities there is a variety of demands recognised for transactions between administration and residents. All in all, it would be desirable to have well-defined sets of ICT statistics for cities and other sub-national entities for measurement and monitoring purposes. Countries, regions and cities need to know their position (what they have and where they are) in terms of ICT facilities and activities. This is a challenge for urban statistics and analysis. The editors would like to thank the contributing authors for their profound and insightful reviews and encouraging examples of developments in the field of ICT statistics made available to the statistical community. The experiences analysed and communicated in the articles will help pave the way towards future progress.

The paper gives a short and very rough overview of the ongoing work in the field of statistics relating to the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impacts on the economies and on the society as a whole. It introduces three slightly different approaches with different emphasis on describing the emergence and diffusion of ICT and the respective economic and social change. These are termed the indicators approach, the new economy approach and the intellectual capital approach. The paper also discusses the basic requirements for the establishment of a new statistical system, as well as the present obstacles and problems of this work. Finally, some remarks are presented regarding further statistical co-operation in this field.

The OECD has acted as a forum for the discussion of policies regarding the information society for over 20-years, producing guidelines and recommendations in areas such as privacy of personal information, computer security, cryptography, regulatory reform of communications, and most recently on-line consumer protection and the taxation of e-commerce. By and large, this work was undertaken without the benefit of statistical measures. But the economic performance of a number of OECD Member countries during the 1990s underscores that the policy challenges being posed by the information society are increasingly economic in nature-how ICT is affecting productivity, growth rates, inflation, labour markets etc.-necessitating the need for statistically rigorous data. This paper outlines how recent efforts by national statistical offices to improve this situation have allowed researchers to gain new insight into the economic impact associated with ICTs and applications like e-commerce, leading to a number of policy recommendations as to how best to exploit the economic potential of these technologies. The paper ends by outlining important policy issues that require new statistical efforts.

Modern information technologies, particularly the technology of very large data bases, Internet and modern mass media, have changed the processes of production, storage and dissemination of information. These technologies have a direct impact on the practical realization of citizens' rights to information. In democratic societies, in modern IT environment, information is produced and disseminated by many social and economic entities. Many producers and disseminators of information do not know or do not obey the criteria which should be met by any information delivered to the public. In this paper the advantages and the threats for the citizens' rights to information generated by the distribution and globalization of information processes in modern IT environment are discussed. It seems that for the protection of the citizens' rights to information, there is the need for specification and codification of quality criteria and standards for information produced and disseminated with the use of modern IT. Official statistics may and should play an important and active role in defining those criteria and standards. Professional ethics of statisticians and of official statistics seems to be the proper basis for that. Ethical principles of statistics are formulated in two basic documents: The fundamental principles of official statistics adopted by the UN Statistical Commission in 1994 and the ISI Declaration on statistical ethics adopted by the ISI in 1985.

Statistics Canada has measured the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for close to 15 years in industry and more recently in households and it has developed a body of knowledge on the effects of the use of these technologies. While ICTs have long been used in manufacturing processes, the use of computers and networks, and a growing number of ways of accessing networks, are changing the way business is done and lives are led. This paper provides examples of ICT use in private and public institutions, in households, and by individuals. It goes on to illustrate the consequent development of electronic commerce and of other uses of the Internet and concludes with some implications for the development of official statistics in light of policy requirements.

This paper outlines the ICT statistical developments that the ABS has undertaken over recent years. These developments have been on both the supply side (ICT industry) and the demand side (use of IT by sector). The content of ABS ICT surveys has changed significantly over the last few years and are expected to develop further in line with industry changes and emerging policy needs. Recent developments in household collections have been the inclusion of IT use questions in the 2001 Census of Population and Housing and in various ABS social surveys such as Children's Participation in Culture and Leisure Activities. Annual business IT use surveys are now conducted and include topics such as Internet commerce and IT security. Biennial ICT industry surveys are conducted to provide data on ICT production, imports and exports, ICT industry employment, performance and structure information. An Internet activity survey is run every six months and provides regional Internet access details and infrastructure details on Internet service providers. A major development for 2002-03 will be the compilation of an ICT satellite account. ABS intends to produce an ICT Information Development Plan to guide its future statistical development work in the ICT field.

Taking into account the developments of ICT in recent years, a lot of countries are dealing with the preparation of statistics on ICT. In Japan, the Basic Law on Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society (Basic Law on IT) was enforced on January 6, 2001, in which the Government is obliged to prepare official statistics related to ICT. In Japan, at least 41 kinds of official statistical surveys, including questions related to ICT, have been conducted in the past five years. Their main purpose, survey items and survey methods are various and different from each other. To grasp the new development in IT as a whole, ''IT Indicators in Japan'', which is a new compendium on ICT, was compiled in 2001. Also, ''Information and Communications in Japan'', which is a white paper published in 2001, presented basic data on the extent to which IT has permeated the economic activity and people's lives. In addition, the 11th revision of the Japan Standard Industrial Classification (JSIC) was published by the Statistical Standards Department, Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (MPHPT) in March 2002 in response to the change of economy and society including the development of ICT. The Working Group on Indicators for the Information Society of OECD has been working for several years in order to prepare internationally comparable and statistically measurable ICT indicators and related ICT statistics. In this paper, an overview of the present situation of Japanese official statistics related to ICT is given with some analysis. In addition, some problems are raised which should be considered from the viewpoint of the necessity and measurability and so on for the appropriate preparation of ICT indicators and e-commerce-related statistics. ''IT; Information Technology'' and ''ICT; Information and Communications Technology'' are often used without any distinction. ''ICT'' is used in this paper except where ''IT'' is used as a proper noun, as it is considered almost the same as ''IT''. The views expressed herein are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Statistical Standards Department or any other Japanese government authorities.

Measuring knowledge development is a new statistical activity that warrants urgent attention in the light of the current Internet explosion. The Internet creates virtual networks by connecting information nodes, knowledge nexus, people and institutions. The Internet has resulted in an unprecedented proliferation of Information, Communication, Knowledge and Entertainment (ICKE), which has in turn brought about structural changes in all aspects of social, economic and political governance. For public policy formulators, including the statistical community, it is imperative that the knowledge development aspect of ICKE be measured. Being abstract, knowledge is difficult to quantify. However, the manifestations of attributes and variables of any knowledge development activity are measurable. The paper outlines a conceptual framework for achieving this. This proposed framework adopts a socio-technological approach, premised on contemporary information and knowledge development as an integral of the people and technology dimensions. To illustrate the workability of the proposed model, the paper identifies some parameters and variables in the current statistical system, and highlights some new data generated via the Internet Subscriber Study and ICT Exposition Visitor Study. All illustrations refer to Malaysian data. Finally, the paper outlines `way forward' initiatives for establishing a full-fledged set of information and knowledge development indicators.

This paper considers the language devised by Karl Pearson and his associates for discussing distributions, populations and samples, the basic language for frequentist inference. The original language-some of which is still in use-is described and also the changes it underwent under the influence of R.A. Fisher and of Russian and American mathematicians. The period covered is roughly 1890-1950.

We consider quadratic regression models where the explanatory variable is measured with error. The effect of classical measurement error is to flatten the curvature of the estimated function. The effect on the observed turning point depends on the location of the true turning point relative to the population mean of the true predictor. Two methods for adjusting parameter estimates for the measurement error are compared. First, two versions of regression calibration estimation are considered. This approximates the model between the observed variables using the moments of the true explanatory variable given its surrogate measurement. For certain models an expanded regression calibration approximation is exact. The second approach uses moment-based methods which require no assumptions about the distribution of the covariates measured with error. The estimates are compared in a simulation study, and used to examine the sensitivity to measurement error in models relating income inequality to the level of economic development. The simulations indicate that the expanded regression calibration estimator dominates the other estimators when its distributional assumptions are satisfied. When they fail, a small-sample modification of the method-of-moments estimator performs best. Both estimators are sensitive to misspecification of the measurement error model.

Although leptokurtosis is fairly common in macroeconomic time series, agreement over what non-normal distributions are plausible, is rare. The paper proposes a linear model that allows for trend versus difference stationarity and asymmetric behavior over the business cycle along with several distributional alternatives for the disturbance terms. It proposes computationally feasible Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods to perform Bayesian computations, applies the model to industrial production data of seven industrialized countries, and relies on prior predictive densities to compare models with Student-t, symmetric stable, EGARCH, exponential power family and finite-mixture-of-normals errors. The relationship between unit root inference, asymmetry and leptokurtosis is examined in detail using the exact, finite-sample posteriors corresponding to the different models.