2018 retrospective: Published studies include Measures against Corruption, World Cup and Elections

Scientific production is a trademark of FGV and continued in full swing from May to August 2018. Many innovative studies and projects were released on several current issues.

May 10 saw the release of the 2018 Open Data for Cities Index, an initiative of FGV’s Public Policy Analysis Division (DAPP) alongside Open Knowledge Brasil (OKBr). This is a civil society initiative that seeks to map the state of open data in several countries (and cities) around the world. Another study was released in book form on May 23 by FGV’s Rio de Janeiro Law School (Direito Rio). “População em situação de rua: direitos humanos, políticas públicas e programas de housing first” [Street Population: human rights, public policies and housing first programs] is the title of the publication that made a comparative study of the profile of the street population in some Brazilian cities and also in the international scenario, based on a survey of data and public policies in each of these places.

Another major initiative was the launch of the mega project “New Measures against Corruption”, by Transparency International in partnership with Direito Rio and FGV’s Sao Paulo Law School (Direito SP), which brings together 70 measures to combat corruption, considered the biggest package of the genre ever produced worldwide. The truck drivers’ strike that stopped Brazil in May prompted a special study by FGV’s Brazilian Institute of Economics (IBRE) on inflation. The survey found that food prices skyrocketed because of the strike. Potato prices, for instance, increased by 150.13% during this period.

If sports results fell short of expectations, Brazilians showed that their passion for football is still on the rise off the field. The most viewed article on FGV News in the year, with over 16,000 views, was a study by FGV’s School of Applied Mathematics (EMAp), which assessed, based on a mathematical model, the probability of results for all matches in the World Cup.

With the end of the World Cup, the issue that dominated the public debate was the elections. In a major effort to combat misinformation, the DAPP launched the Digital Democracy Room, which monitored public debate on social media by providing public and accessible daily analyses on society’s perceptions of the public policy agenda and economic debate, as well as political process manipulation practices, such as the automated profiles (bots) and fake news.

Tomorrow we will continue to address the topic and highlight research that made the news from September to December.

See the first part of the FGV News retrospective – Research and Studies.