Homicides in Rio: a review of the data

I am so sorry. Back in February I wrote about the sharp fall of the homicide rate in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Daniel Cerqueira, an IPEA economist , has just found out that the data is seriously flawed (in Portuguese). Check Graph 4.2.  From 2006 on, there was a huge increase of violent deaths with "unknown causes" and the victims have demographic profiles strangely similar to the victims of homicides. True, homicide rates have fallen, but it was not as sharp as the official data shows.

How unequal is Brazil?

A lot. The table bellow shows monthly family income per capita by percentile. (Yes, it includes Bolsa Família, the cash based transfer program that reaches 11 million families).

Percentile	R$	US$
5	53	33
10	100	62
50	375	233
90	1300	807
95	2000	1242
99	4650	2888
Source: PNAD (IBGE, 2009)

1,61 BRL=1 USD (the current exchange rate).

National Historical Geographic Information System

NHGIS provides to US census data (1790-2000) and boundary shapefiles !!! The interface is "for dummies" and the website is free!

OECD Regional Statistics

Impressive. (HT Waldery Rodrigues Jr. and Patrícia Morita).

Gapminder!

Now it has a desktop version. HT Shikida!

Links

- An updated version of the Big Mac index;
- Stop the press! Psychologists have discovered the decreasing marginal utility of income !
- Historical Financial Statistics. The Brazilian data comes from IPEADATA;
- Solow contra DSGE. (I do not know if he is right. But what a terrific writer he is!)

World Bank Enterprise Surveys

Now you can download data on more than 100,000 firms in 123 countries.
(HT Lucas Mation)

Google Public Data Explorer

Here. World Development Indicators are available!

IPUMS

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. (HT Rafael Pereira!)