Government Spending Transparency on the Internet

2015 ◽  
pp. 1149-1165
Author(s):  
Evika Karamagioli ◽  
Eleni-Revekka Staiou ◽  
Dimitris Gouscos
Keyword(s):  
Government Spending ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Greek Government ◽  
Using Data

The objective of this article is to present four civil society initiatives that attempt to scrutinize government spending using open data from the Greek government OpenGov initiative Diavgeia project (“diavgeia”, in Greek, standing for lucidity). In a period of strong economic recession, Greece is facing one of the most intense social and political crisis of its history, with citizens characterized by substantial disenchantment with politics and a cynical stance about their government and representatives. The Diavgeia project was launched in 2010 by the Greek government with the objective to bring back transparency and trust in the political process, enabling online insights into government spending. By reviewing current bottom-up initiatives in Greece that are using data from Diavgeia in an effort to serve the principles of transparency, openness, and offering public data in a manner easy to understand, evaluate and re-use, we discuss the role of open government mechanisms in introducing a new relation between citizens and policy-makers, tackling contemporary political challenges of democratic societies and reconnecting ordinary people with politics and policy-making.

Government Spending Transparency on the Internet

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evika Karamagioli ◽  
Eleni-Revekka Staiou ◽  
Dimitris Gouscos
Keyword(s):  
Government Spending ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Greek Government ◽  
Using Data

The objective of this article is to present four civil society initiatives that attempt to scrutinize government spending using open data from the Greek government OpenGov initiative Diavgeia project (“diavgeia”, in Greek, standing for lucidity). In a period of strong economic recession, Greece is facing one of the most intense social and political crisis of its history, with citizens characterized by substantial disenchantment with politics and a cynical stance about their government and representatives. The Diavgeia project was launched in 2010 by the Greek government with the objective to bring back transparency and trust in the political process, enabling online insights into government spending. By reviewing current bottom-up initiatives in Greece that are using data from Diavgeia in an effort to serve the principles of transparency, openness, and offering public data in a manner easy to understand, evaluate and re-use, we discuss the role of open government mechanisms in introducing a new relation between citizens and policy-makers, tackling contemporary political challenges of democratic societies and reconnecting ordinary people with politics and policy-making.

Government Spending Transparency on the Internet

2015 ◽  
pp. 866-883
Author(s):  
Evika Karamagioli ◽  
Eleni-Revekka Staiou ◽  
Dimitris Gouscos
Keyword(s):  
Government Spending ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Greek Government ◽  
Using Data

The objective of this article is to present four civil society initiatives that attempt to scrutinize government spending using open data from the Greek government OpenGov initiative Diavgeia project (“diavgeia”, in Greek, standing for lucidity). In a period of strong economic recession, Greece is facing one of the most intense social and political crisis of its history, with citizens characterized by substantial disenchantment with politics and a cynical stance about their government and representatives. The Diavgeia project was launched in 2010 by the Greek government with the objective to bring back transparency and trust in the political process, enabling online insights into government spending. By reviewing current bottom-up initiatives in Greece that are using data from Diavgeia in an effort to serve the principles of transparency, openness, and offering public data in a manner easy to understand, evaluate and re-use, we discuss the role of open government mechanisms in introducing a new relation between citizens and policy-makers, tackling contemporary political challenges of democratic societies and reconnecting ordinary people with politics and policy-making.

The Role of Sex and Age on Pre-drinking: An Exploratory International Comparison of 27 Countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 378-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Ferris ◽  
Cheneal Puljević ◽  
Florian Labhart ◽  
Adam Winstock ◽  
Emmanuel Kuntsche
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel Models ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drinking Behaviour ◽  
Single Model ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Worldwide Phenomenon ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Multivariate Multilevel Models

Abstract Aims This exploratory study aims to model the impact of sex and age on the percentage of pre-drinking in 27 countries, presenting a single model of pre-drinking behaviour for all countries and then comparing the role of sex and age on pre-drinking behaviour between countries. Methods Using data from the Global Drug Survey, the percentages of pre-drinkers were estimated for 27 countries from 64,485 respondents. Bivariate and multivariate multilevel models were used to investigate and compare the percentage of pre-drinking by sex (male and female) and age (16–35 years) between countries. Results The estimated percentage of pre-drinkers per country ranged from 17.8% (Greece) to 85.6% (Ireland). The influence of sex and age on pre-drinking showed large variation between the 27 countries. With the exception of Canada and Denmark, higher percentages of males engaged in pre-drinking compared to females, at all ages. While we noted a decline in pre-drinking probability among respondents in all countries after 21 years of age, after the age of 30 this probability remained constant in some countries, or even increased in Brazil, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. Conclusions Pre-drinking is a worldwide phenomenon, but varies substantially by sex and age between countries. These variations suggest that policy-makers would benefit from increased understanding of the particularities of pre-drinking in their own country to efficiently target harmful pre-drinking behaviours.

scholarly journals Do countries with different cultural, social and religious backgrounds behave the same way concerning women’s representation on corporate boards?

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-264
Author(s):  
Gonca Gungor Goksu ◽  
Maria Luisa Esteban Salvador
Keyword(s):  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Corporate Boards ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Using Data ◽  
New Evidence

This study focuses on female representation on corporate boards in Turkey and Spain, two countries in which clear differences exist in social, cultural and religious contexts. Using data from the most influential companies in the two states, we have investigated the presence of women in the boardrooms in 2014. We present new evidence on the comparison of outcomes of women’s participation on boards. Results show differences in the involvement of women on the boards of major companies in Turkey and Spain. Statistical analysis suggests that the presence of women on the most powerful boards of directors of Spanish companies is higher than that of Turkish companies, and there are statistically significant differences between the two countries. This article offers insights to policy makers interested in analysing whether differences, values and beliefs between countries could influence the role of women in the decision-making process of the upper echelons of business. Keywords: Turkey, Spain, board of directors, female directors, corporate governance.  

scholarly journals Explainable models for forecasting the emergence of political instability

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0254350
Author(s):  
Emma Baillie ◽  
Piers D. L. Howe ◽  
Andrew Perfors ◽  
Tim Miller ◽  
Yoshihisa Kashima ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Power ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Lasso Regression ◽  
Macroeconomic Factors ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Using Data ◽  
One Year ◽  
The One

Building on previous research on the use of macroeconomic factors for conflict prediction and using data on political instability provided by the Political Instability Task Force, this article proposes two minimal forecasting models of political instability optimised to have the greatest possible predictive power for one-year and two-year event horizons, while still making predictions that are fully explainable. Both models employ logistic regression and use just three predictors: polity code (a measure of government type), infant mortality, and years of stability (i.e., years since the last instability event). These models make predictions for 176 countries on a country-year basis and achieve AUPRC’s of 0.108 and 0.115 for the one-year and two-year models respectively. They use public data with ongoing availability so are readily reproducible. They use Monte Carlo simulations to construct confidence intervals for their predictions and are validated by testing their predictions for a set of reference years separate from the set of reference years used to train them. This validation shows that the models are not overfitted but suggests that some of the previous models in the literature may have been. The models developed in this article are able to explain their predictions by showing, for a given prediction, which predictors were the most influential and by using counterfactuals to show how the predictions would have been altered had these predictors taken different values. These models are compared to models created by lasso regression and it is shown that they have at least as good predictive power but that their predictions can be more readily explained. Because policy makers are more likely to be influenced by models whose predictions can explained, the more interpretable a model is the more likely it is to influence policy.

scholarly journals Protecting Privacy and Transforming COVID-19 Case Surveillance Datasets for Public Use

2021 ◽  
pp. 003335492110268
Author(s):  
Brian Lee ◽  
Brandi Dupervil ◽  
Nicholas P. Deputy ◽  
Wil Duck ◽  
Stephen Soroka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Use ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Management Platform ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Data Elements ◽  
Public Datasets

Objectives Federal open-data initiatives that promote increased sharing of federally collected data are important for transparency, data quality, trust, and relationships with the public and state, tribal, local, and territorial partners. These initiatives advance understanding of health conditions and diseases by providing data to researchers, scientists, and policymakers for analysis, collaboration, and use outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), particularly for emerging conditions such as COVID-19, for which data needs are constantly evolving. Since the beginning of the pandemic, CDC has collected person-level, de-identified data from jurisdictions and currently has more than 8 million records. We describe how CDC designed and produces 2 de-identified public datasets from these collected data. Methods We included data elements based on usefulness, public request, and privacy implications; we suppressed some field values to reduce the risk of re-identification and exposure of confidential information. We created datasets and verified them for privacy and confidentiality by using data management platform analytic tools and R scripts. Results Unrestricted data are available to the public through Data.CDC.gov, and restricted data, with additional fields, are available with a data-use agreement through a private repository on GitHub.com. Practice Implications Enriched understanding of the available public data, the methods used to create these data, and the algorithms used to protect the privacy of de-identified people allow for improved data use. Automating data-generation procedures improves the volume and timeliness of sharing data.

scholarly journals The Ukrainian Crisis and Russia: Theoretical and Technological Aspects of the Problem

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-288
Author(s):  
Andrey Andreev
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation

The article deals with the intermediate results of the use of a set of Russian political strategies and technologies in the Ukrainian direction of Foreign Policy since Ukraine gained independence. The research takes into account the peculiarities of the political development of Ukraine. The research objective was to identify the prerequisites, characteristics, and consequences of the Ukrainian political crisis at the turn of 2013–2014 and the resulting political regime and order. A systematic approach and comparative analysis made it possible to formulate a general assessment of the political situation in Ukraine following the so-called "the Revolution of Dignity". On the basis of formal-logical analysis, the author substantiated the need for a comprehensive audit of the amount of Russian technologies through the application of system analysis to certain political circumstances. The author substantiated the increasing role of political technologies of pro-active character in the situation of deep crisis of previously effective political institutions, mechanisms, and norms. The resonant nature of such technologies made it possible to link the latter with the political reflection on the place and role of Ukraine in the system of Russian Foreign Policy, as well as on the peculiarities of the Ukrainian political process and the nature of its political system. The author generalized the experience of Russian influence on the mentioned Ukrainian events and defined the general conditions that can allow Russia to affect a changeable political situation in the post-Soviet countries, taking into account the inconsistency of modern political trends. The scope of the results can be used in the spheres of foreign policy, public administration, and public policy.

Role of Macroeconomic Variables in Entrepreneurship Development: Evidence from Renewable Energy Sector of Nepal

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-83
Author(s):  
Maheshwar Prasad Yadav
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Market Size ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Macroeconomic Variables ◽  
Entrepreneurship Development ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Insight Into

This study analyzes the impact of macroeconomic variables on entrepreneurship development in renewable energy sector of Nepal. This study examines the effect of GDP, market size in terms of population and number of households, and sales in terms of number of renewable energy systems installed on entrepreneurship development, i.e., number of renewable energy enterprises (REEs) using data from 1992/93 to 2016/17 by estimating various logarithmic models. The study concludes that the most important factor affecting entrepreneurship development is market size followed by GDP and sales in the context of renewable energy sector in Nepal. This study is considered to be useful for REEs, development actors, academia and policy makers creating employment by increasing production and providing energy in the country. The study can be further extended by incorporating the opinion and views of respondents from customers, regulating authorities and development actors in the sector to get greater insight into the results.

scholarly journals Digital Entrepreneurs in Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics: Who Are They?

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Bongsug (Kevin) Chae ◽  
Gyuhyeong Goh
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Learning Machine ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities ◽  
Key Resources ◽  
Digital Entrepreneurship

Digital technologies are key resources for entrepreneurial activities and there is great interest in digital entrepreneurship. While much research has focused on the role of digital technologies in entrepreneurship and how they are shaping the field, there has been relatively little research on those key players of digital entrepreneurship. Using data from Crunchbase and Twitter API and a learning machine, this study attempts to answer the question of “who are digital entrepreneurs?” This study reports that digital entrepreneurs in the artificial intelligence and data analytics (AIDA) industry are more likely to be male and to be active and connected online than non-digital entrepreneurs. In addition, they tend to be more extroverted and less conscientious and agreeable than other, non-digital, entrepreneurs. Our findings help to develop a clearer picture of digital entrepreneurs, which would be of great interest to investors, policy makers, current and future digital entrepreneurs and educators.

scholarly journals Explaining Gaps in Readiness for College-Level Math: The Role of High School Courses

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark C. Long ◽  
Patrice Iatarola ◽  
Dylan Conger
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Postsecondary Institutions ◽  
Asian Students ◽  
College Level ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
College Going ◽  
School Graduation ◽  
Using Data

Despite increased requirements for high school graduation, almost one-third of the nation's college freshmen are unprepared for college-level math. The need for remediation is particularly high among students who are low income, Hispanic, and black. Female students are also less likely than males to be ready for college-level math. This article estimates how much of these gaps are determined by the courses that students take while in high school. Using data on students in Florida public postsecondary institutions, we find that differences among college-going students in the highest math course taken explain 28–35 percent of black, Hispanic, and poverty gaps in readiness and over three-quarters of the Asian advantage. Courses fail to explain gender gaps in readiness. Low-income, black, and Asian students also receive lower returns to math courses, suggesting differential educational quality. This analysis is valuable to policy makers and educators seeking to reduce disparities in college readiness.

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