IMDS has an engaged participation in the 46th Brazilian Meeting of Econometrics (EBE)

The winners of the IMDS-SBE Award 2024 were, in first place, the article “The Effects of Urban Violence on Primary Health Care Services: Evidence from Poor Neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro”, by Vinicius Peçanha (Instituto de Estudos para Políticas de Saúde – IEPS), Julia Guerra (FGV-SP), Rudi Rocha (FGV-EAESP), Christopher Millett e Thomas Hone (both from Imperial College London), and, in second place, “Does University Expansion Promote Entrepreneurship?”, by Bruna Alvarez, Bruna de Abreu Martins e Daniel Da Mata (all from FGV-EESP). The awards were delivered by the CEO of IMDS, Paulo Tafner, together with Professors Humberto Moreira and José Heleno Faro, from SBE, during the award ceremony held on December 12, within the program of the 46th EBE.

The competing papers for the award should address one of the following thematic axes: cognitive and socio-emotional training of children, adolescents and young people; literacy; basic education; health care for children, adolescents and young people; pregnancy support; training and productive inclusion of young people; prevention of youth violence; impacts on the capacity of children and young people to accumulate human capital resulting from environmental phenomena; and impact assessment of affirmative action policies.

The work “The Effects of Urban Violence on Primary Health Care Services: Evidence from Poor Neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro” addresses the impacts of urban violence on the use of Primary Health Care services between 2009 and 2016, focusing on the city of Rio de Janeiro. The research highlights how episodes of violence, especially shootings resulting from conflicts between criminal factions and police operations, disproportionately affect the poorest areas. Using several databases with high spatial precision, the authors identify the causal effects of violence on the health system. Estimates indicate that police operations result in a 12.7% reduction in primary health procedures, with a greater impact on home visits. Conflicts between armed groups, in turn, lead to a 7.1% drop in the total number of procedures. These results show that urban violence not only compromises access to health services but also aggravates inequalities in the use of these services.

The article “Does University Expansion Promote Entrepreneurship?” analyzes the effects of the expansion of public universities in Brazil between 1998 and 2019 and highlights a 21% increase in the number of companies per 1,000 inhabitants in regions traditionally less attractive for business. This growth was mainly driven by micro and small companies concentrated in the retail and services sectors. Two factors explain these results: 1) the increase in local demand generated by the arrival of students and workers, and 2) the impact of more qualified human capital, with an average increase of 75% in the number of workers with higher education and an increase of 112% in the number of patents registered. The authors also explore alternative scenarios of university expansion, suggesting more strategic allocations to maximize growth on entrepreneurship. The findings underscore the relevance of evidence-based public policies to promote innovation, regional development, and reduce economic inequalities.

From left to right: Humberto Moreira, Bruna de Abreu Martins, Paulo Tafner, and José Heleno Faro – Credit: Disclosure/SBE

By encouraging scientific production, the IMDS-SBE Award has sought to promote the transfer of knowledge and social technologies from teaching and research institutions to public managers and organized civil society. The proposal is to bring together the efforts of academia to learn about issues pertinent to the topics addressed and transform knowledge into action.

IMDS Special Session – “Childhood and the challenges of literacy”

The IMDS Special Session “Childhood and the challenges of literacy” was attended by Gisele Alves, executive manager of eduLab21 / Ayrton Senna Institute, and IMDS researcher Flávio Riva, and was mediated by IMDS CEO Paulo Tafner. Also invited, Renan Sargiani, president of the Edube Institute, suffered an unforeseen event and could not take part.

Gisele Alves presented the neurological pathways of reading, stages of the construction of reading and writing knowledge, and the factors that influence learning, such as motivation, school environment and pedagogical instruction.

Drawing on studies by authors such as Dehaene and Scarborough, she highlighted the interplay between word recognition skills and language comprehension, essential elements for efficient reading. The differences between writing systems and the impact of grapheme-phoneme correspondence on student performance were also addressed. The role of teacher instruction in shaping brain processes was emphasized as a key factor in promoting effective literacy in children and adults.

Gisele Alves during IMDS Special Session – Credit: Disclosure/SBE

Flávio Riva raised the questions “How are the skills that constitute good literacy and good appropriation of the set of skills and writing classified?”, “What is the empirical support for the hypothesis that better literacy generates higher levels of learning in the future?”, and “How to build public policies capable of contributing to the formation of these skills occurring in the most (cost-)effective way possible?”, and presented data on the literacy levels and reading and writing skills of Brazilian children, highlighting that, in 2021, only 56% of children completed 2nd grade literate, and only 4 out of 10 4th grade students were able to interpret texts and articulate ideas. The pandemic has exacerbated these deficits, especially for the 2021 cohort, indicating additional challenges for literacy for the generation that has lived through this critical period.

Next, Riva looked at ways to measure and rank the skills essential for good literacy and the relationship between literacy levels at the beginning of education and subsequent learning. Based on data from SPAECE-Alfa and SAEB, it was pointed out that improvements in literacy in 2nd grade generate substantial positive impacts on Portuguese language performance in 5th grade, so that investments in cost-effective public policies, with a focus on the formation of these skills in the early years, would be fundamental to mitigate inequalities and improve future educational trajectories.

Flávio Riva during IMDS Special Session – Credit: Disclosure/SBE