We study the total sum of Grothendieck residues of a Laurent polynomia
l relative to a family f(1), ..., f(n) of sparse Laurent polynomials i
n n variables with a finite set of common zeroes in the torus T = (C)
(n). Under appropriate assumptions we may embed T ina toric variety X
in such a way that the total residue may be computed by a global objec
t in X, the toric residue. This yields a description of some of its pr
operties and new symbolic algorithms for its computation. (C) 1997 Els
evier Science B.V.