Better public service with data

Davi Augusto Oliveira Pinto’s career in Brazil’s foreign service took him all over the world. Oliveira Pinto is now focused on strengthening his diplomatic work through his MIT education. He completed the MITx MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP), which is jointly administered by MIT Open Learning and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and then applied and was accepted to the DEDP master’s program within MIT’s Department of Economics. 

I think governments should be able to provide data-driven, research-supported services to their constituents, he says. Returning to my role as a diplomat, I hope to use the tools I acquired in the DEDP program to enhance my contributions as a public servant.

As someone responsible for dealing with international trade issues and who understands the potential negative, far-reaching impacts of poorly researched and instituted policies, Oliveira Pinto saw MIT and its world-class economics programs as potentially world-altering tools to help him advance his work. 

Assessing and quantifying impact

Oliveira Pinto’s investigations have yielded some fascinating findings. “Data can be misused,” he notes. “I learned how easily data can tell all kinds of stories, so it’s important to be careful and rigorous when assessing different claims.” He recalls how, during an econometrics class, he learned about parties on opposite sides of a health insurance divide pursuing radically different ends using the same data, each side promoting different views.

Work like this can be a good opportunity for governments interested in a research-supported, data-driven approach to policymaking, he says.

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