This Volume contains the Keynote, Invited and Full Contributed papers presented at COMPSTAT 2000. A companion volume (Jansen & Bethlehem, 2000) contains papers describing the Short Communications and Posters. COMPST AT is a one­ week conference held every two years under the auspices of the International Association of Statistical Computing, a section of the International Statistical Institute. COMPST AT 2000 is jointly organised by the Department of Methodology and Statistics of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Utrecht University, and Statistics Netherlands. It is taking place from 21-25 August 2000 at Utrecht University. Previous COMPSTATs (from 1974-1998) were in Vienna, Berlin, Leiden, Edinburgh, Toulouse, Prague, Rome, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Neuchatel, Vienna, Barcelona and Bristol. The conference is the main European forum for developments at the interface between statistics and computing. This was encapsulated as follows on the COMPST A T 2000 homepage http://neon. vb.cbs.nlIrsml compstat. Statistical computing provides the link between statistical theory and applied statistics. As at previous COMPSTATs, the scientific programme will range over all aspects of this link, from the development and implementation of new statistical ideas through to user experiences and software evaluation. The programme should appeal to anyone working in statistics and using computers, whether in universities, industrial companies, research institutes or as software developers. At COMPST AT 2000 there is a special interest in the interplay with official statistics. This is evident from papers in the area of computerised data collection, survey methodology, treatment of missing data, and the like.