Thursday, December 11, 2008

United Nations Statistical Yearbook



At $160 per year, this is not a real big ticket item, yet when I replaced the old edition this year with the new one, it looked like it had never been opened, let alone used. Why don't we use it? Do we not remember it's there? Do we not get asked for this information? Is it readily available on the internet?


It is in both English and French (on the same page) and has a total of 69 tables divided into four parts:


World and region summary includes population, production, trade and finance statistics for the world as a whole and regions of the world such as Europe and Asia, but not specific countries.


Population and social statistics includes statistics on population, education, nutrition and childbearing, and communications for individual countries.


Economic activity, at 465 pages and by far the largest section, includes statistics on wages and prices, labor force, industrial production, manufacturing, energy and the environment, etc. for individual countries.


International economic relations includes tables on international tourism, development assistance, balance of payments, etc.


Appendixes or annexes trace country or area name changes, which countries are included in specific regions and conversion tables.


This can be frustrating to use because of the difficulty in collecting similar statistics for all countries, but, of course, that is no fault of this resource. For example, it is impossible to find out the female population of Chad, because only the total population is counted, and the latest for that is 1993. The difficulty and obstacles encountered in collecting these statistics is illustrated by the four pages of fine print foot notes following the country population table, and it is helpful to know why needed information does not exist.
All things considered, it is good and reliable resource. But, should be continue to get it?