Germany’s botched data revamp leaves economists ‘flying blind’

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Olaf Storbeck: “Germany’s statistical office has suspended some of its most important indicators after botching a data update, leaving citizens and economists in the dark at a time when the country is trying to boost flagging growth.

In a nation once famed for its punctuality and reliability, even its notoriously diligent beancounters have become part of a growing perception that “nothing works any more” as Germans moan about delayed trains, derelict roads and bridges, and widespread staff shortages.

“There used to be certain aspects in life that you could just rely on, and the fact that official statistics are published on time was one of them — not any more,” said Jörg Krämer, chief economist of Commerzbank, adding that the suspended data was also closely watched by monetary policymakers and investors.

Since May the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) has not updated time-series data for retail and wholesale sales, as well as revenue from the services sector, hospitality, car dealers and garages.

These indicators, which are published monthly and adjusted for seasonal changes, are a key component of GDP and crucial for assessing consumer demand in the EU’s largest economy.

Private consumption accounted for 52.7 per cent of German output in 2023. Retail sales made up 28 per cent of private consumption but shrank 3.4 per cent from a year earlier. Overall GDP declined 0.3 per cent last year, Destatis said.

The Wiesbaden-based authority, which was established in 1948, said the outages had been caused by IT issues and a complex methodological change in EU business statistics in a bid to boost accuracy.

Destatis has been working on the project since the EU directive in 2019, and the deadline for implementing the changes is December.

But a series of glitches, data issues and IT delays meant Destatis has been unable to publish retail sales and other services data for four months.

A key complication is that the revenues of companies that operate in both services and manufacturing will now be reported differently for each sector. In the past, all revenue was treated as either services or manufacturing, depending on which unit was bigger…(More)”

Artificial Intelligence as a Catalyzer for Open Government Data Ecosystems: A Typological Theory Approach

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Anthony Simonofski et al: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) within digital government has witnessed growing interest as it can improve governance processes and stimulate citizen engagement. Despite the rise of Generative AI, discussions on AI fusion with Open Government Data (OGD) remain limited to specific implementations and scattered across disciplines. Drawing from the synthesis of the literature through a systematic review, this study examines and structures how AI can enrich OGD initiatives. Employing a typological approach, ideal profiles of AI application within the OGD lifecycle are formalized, capturing varied roles across the portal and ecosystems perspectives. The resulting conceptual framework identifies eight ideal types of AI applications for OGD: AI as Portal Curator, Explorer, Linker, and Monitor, and AI as Ecosystem Data Retriever, Connecter, Value Developer and Engager. This theoretical foundation shows the under-investigation of some types and will inform policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in leveraging AI to cultivate OGD ecosystems…(More)”.

Second-Order Agency

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Cass Sunstein: “Many people prize agency; they want to make their own choices. Many people also prize second-order agency, by which they decide whether and when to exercise first-order agency. First-order agency can be an extraordinary benefit or an immense burden. When it is an extraordinary benefit, people might reject any kind of interference, or might welcome a nudge, or might seek some kind of boost, designed to increase their capacities. When first-order agency is an immense burden, people might also welcome a nudge or might make some kind of delegation (say, to an employer, a doctor, an algorithm, or a regulator). These points suggests that the line between active choosing and paternalism can be illusory. When private or public institutions override people’s desire not to exercise first-order agency, and thus reject people’s exercise of second-order agency, they are behaving paternalistically, through a form of choice-requiring paternalism. Choice-requiring paternalism may compromise second-order agency. It might not be very nice to do that…(More)”.

Hopes over fears: Can democratic deliberation increase positive emotions concerning the future?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Mikko Leino and Katariina Kulha: “Deliberative mini-publics have often been considered to be a potential way to promote future-oriented thinking. Still, thinking about the future can be hard as it can evoke negative emotions such as stress and anxiety. This article establishes why a more positive outlook towards the future can benefit long-term decision-making. Then, it explores whether and to what extent deliberative mini-publics can facilitate thinking about the future by moderating negative emotions and encouraging positive emotions. We analyzed an online mini-public held in the region of Satakunta, Finland, organized to involve the public in the drafting process of a regional plan extending until the year 2050. In addition to the standard practices related to mini-publics, the Citizens’ Assembly included an imaginary time travel exercise, Future Design, carried out with half of the participants. Our analysis makes use of both survey and qualitative data. We found that democratic deliberation can promote positive emotions, like hopefulness and compassion, and lessen negative emotions, such as fear and confusion, related to the future. There were, however, differences in how emotions developed in the various small groups. Interviews with participants shed further light onto how participants felt during the event and how their sentiments concerning the future changed…(More)”

Global Citizen Deliberation on Artificial Intelligence

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Connected by Data: “This report explores how global citizen deliberation, particularly drawing on the concept of a global citizens’ assembly, could and should shape the future of artificial intelligence. Drawing on an extended design lab of in-depth interviews and workshops that took place in mid-2024, it presents a series of options for bringing the voices of those affected by AI development and deployment into decision-making spaces, through processes that can deliver informed and inclusive dialogue… In this report we address how established and emerging sites of global AI development and governance can integrate citizen deliberation, setting out five template options for citizens’ assemblies on AI: deliberative review of AI summits and scientific reports; an independent global assembly on AI; a series of distributed dialogues organized across the globe; a technology-enabled collective intelligence process; and commissioning the inclusion of AI topics in other deliberative processes…(More)”.

Trust in official statistics remains high but there’s still work to do

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Ian Diamond (UK): “..I’m excited about the potential of new data sources, and I want everyone in the UK to have the skills to understand and use the stats they allow us to create. With this in mind, we’re launching a whole host of new projects to bring our stats to the people:

How to videos

To benefit from stats, and be confident that they are reliable, we need to understand more about the data they have been derived from and how to read and use them.

Our new set of video guides are a great place to start, covering topics such as why data matters to how the ONS de-identifies them and where we get them from.

They are all available to watch on our YouTube channel.

Playground survey

During the 2023/2024 school year, we teamed up with the BBC and the Micro:bit Foundation to give children in primary schools the opportunity to take part in a nationwide playground survey.

The BBC Micro:bit Playground Survey is a wonderful way for children to learn data skills at an early age, getting to grips with data collection and analysis in a way that is relevant to their everyday lives, in a familiar and fun setting.

If children become data-literate now, they will be well prepared to navigate and take advantage of the huge amounts of data that will no doubt play an important role in their adult lives.

Keep an eye out for the results in October.

Navigating numbers – the ONS data education programme

We’ve also been busy developing a data education programme for students in further education or sixth form.

Navigating numbers: how data are used to create statistics includes a series of five classroom toolkits, exploring topics such as gender pay gaps, inflation, and health.

Created with the support of the Association of Colleges (AoC), this learning resource is free for teachers to use and available for download on the ONS website.

The ONS’s educational webinar series: Bringing data to life

If you want to learn more about measuring the cost of living or our nation’s health, then our new webinar series has you covered. These and other topics will be brought to life in this new series of online events, launching in September 2024…(More)”

Reviving the commons: A scoping review of urban and digital commoning

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by James Henderson and Oliver Escobar: “The review aims to contribute to the growing discourse on the commons, highlighting its significance in contemporary societies and its potential as an alternative to traditional forms of socioeconomic and political organisation via the state and/or the market. Practitioners in the field argue that we are witnessing a revival of the commons in the 21st century. This report interrogates the nature of that revival and explores key concepts, examples, trends and debates in theory and practice, while outlining an emerging research agenda…(More)”.

A blueprint for better international collaboration on evidence

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

BIT Report: “…This report is focused on four countries: the U.S., the UK, Australia, and Canada and provides a series of practical ideas for investments to improve the quality and use of evidence in policy design, implementation, and evaluation. It highlights the opportunities and challenges ahead, as the demand for and supply of evidence continue to grow in a world with complex policy challenges. 

It is a call to action for governments to collaborate more closely on evidence generation and utilisation. By pooling resources and expertise, countries can bridge the existing gaps in their evidence ecosystems, ultimately leading to more informed and effective public policies. 

The main recommendation is for countries to collaborate on evidence synthesis. The most promising avenue for evidence synthesis is Living Evidence Reviews (LERs), which are systematic reviews that are continuously updated. The authors propose ‘meta’ LERs are conducted across all areas of social policy to answer the questions that really matter to policymakers…(More)”. See also: Using Living Evidence and
Visualization in the Grant Making Process

UN E-Government Survey 2024

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by United Nations (DESA): “…provides a comprehensive assessment of the digital government landscape across all 193 Member States. The 2024 Survey highlights a significant upward trend in the development of digital government worldwide, with increased investment in resilient infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies. The global average value of the E-Government Development Index (EGDI) shows substantial improvement, with the proportion of the population lagging in digital government development decreasing from 45.0 per cent in 2022 to 22.4 per cent in 2024. Despite significant progress in digital government development, the EGDI averages for the African region, least developed countries, and small island developing States remain below the global average, underscoring the need for targeted efforts to bridge existing gaps.

At the local level, the Survey continues to assess city portals using the Local Online Services Index (LOSI). The LOSI findings reflect steady progress but also highlight persistent disparities between national and local e-government performance, pointing to the need for focused initiatives to strengthen digital government at the municipal level. This edition introduces the new Digital Government Model Framework, providing countries with a comprehensive road map for the effective planning, implementation and assessment of digital government initiatives. A short addendum explores the integration of AI in digital government development, emphasizing the importance of maximizing benefits and minimizing risks to achieve balanced governance…(More)”

Leadership as Stewardship

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Marian Iszatt-White: “Exploring different understandings of stewardship across a range of research domains and cultures, this insightful book examines the tensions between competing perspectives and their implications for leadership. Marian Iszatt-White proposes ‘leadership-as-stewardship’ as a new signifier for leadership research, providing practical guidance to leaders navigating the challenges and trade-offs of the Anthropocene.

Leadership as Stewardship identifies how the apparent inadequacy of modern leadership coincides with a shift in scholarship away from practical inquiry and towards a range of aspirational approaches, including authentic, sustainable, responsible and ethical. Iszatt-White proposes stewardship as an alternative to these aspirational forms of leadership and challenges the ability of Western, Enlightenment-based thinking to solve global issues created by that same thinking. The book concludes that it is time to place the more enact-able construct of stewardship at the heart of leadership aspirations and scholarly activities.

Interdisciplinary in scope, this book will be vital for scholars of leadership, management and organization studies. Highlighting the ability of stewardship to combat perceived failings in leadership as both a construct and a practice, it is also valuable to policymakers, management educators and leadership practitioners…(More)”.