Abstract

The Bank of Japan compiles a wide range of economic statistics, including various types of financial statistics, price indexes, and the Tankan (Short-Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan), which draw a great deal of attention from media, economists, and policy makers. As the central bank of Japan, the Bank faces three challenges in compiling statistics: (1) it relies solely on the voluntary cooperation of data contributors, (2) while it also needs to meet the expectations of the public for the high quality management of statistics, (3) all under considerable labor and budgetary constraints. The Bank ensures the quality of its statistics by ensuring they comply with “The Basic Principles for the Compilation, Release, and Development of Statistics,” published by the Bank. The Bank also makes ongoing efforts to further improve the quality of its management of statistics. This paper explains the recent review of our Basic Principle and also examines other quality management frameworks, such as the European Statistics Code of Practice developed by the Eurostat, and the Declaration on Professional Ethics (DPE) by the International Statistical Institute (ISI).