The role of epistemic communities in developing Brazilian statistics

Resumen

This paper studies three moments in the emergence of Brazilian economic gauges: the first official economic indicators produced by the FGV in the 1940s, the production of competing indicators by the DIEESE from the 1950s onwards, and finally, the transference of economic statistics production to the IBGE in the 1970s. I found that epistemic communities played an important role in creating and developing Brazilian economic statistics. More interestingly, access to knowledge from outside Brazil through migrants, conferences, and technical partnerships were the main conduits for these indicators in the first place. Furthermore, understanding the reasons for the construction of Brazilian economic gauges explains the kind of relationship Brazilian society has with its statistics and the degree of independence its statistical offices enjoy.