IPEADATA: memories of sub-regional (real) and regional (dreamed of) development in Brazil for e-Science

Abstract

This paper shows the results of a research to evaluate the Municipal and Regional GDP data from the IPEADATA platform, concerning the concept of e-Science, by simulating the analysis of data quality and usefulness in the context of regional development public policies. E-Science’s assumptions and objectives, evolved from Vannevar Bush’s seminal ideas in the post-war period, seek to rescue the notion of usefulness and importance not only of scientific information, but also of its process and resources of production, dissemination and use in national development contexts. With this in mind, the results of the analysis of data from the IPEADATA platform using techniques for recognizing evolutionary graphic patterns of reference revealed interesting aspects on the economic growth pace of Brazilian municipalities in several remarkable historical periods – before the “economic miracle”, in a period covering the “miracle”, in the adjustment period after the “miracle” and, more recently, in a “ new cycle” of economic growth. Another important conclusion overcome ideological discussion about the need of public or (exclusive “or”) private funding to promote sub-regional economic development with examples of both sources of capital in that spatial level of development in Brazil. In relation to the other requirements, data quality proved to be satisfactory, requiring only the application of an “Extract, Transform and Load” (ETL) process prior to its loading on the platform, in order to correct a few errors in the data.