ABSTRACT
The efforts made in Brazil for the production of quantitative data for economic and social research are described as a case study on developing countries. A description of the current computer-based organization that is given to data collected in censuses and surveys is presented, together with the packages being developed for access to the organized information. This chapter considers only the organization and retrieval of quantitative data generated by the statistical surveys conducted by Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE). IBGE came into existence in 1938 by the merging of the National Institute for Statistics and the National Council for Geography. Quantitative economic planning in Brazil is a relatively activity at the government level. The chapter presents a description of the basic concepts related to the organization of the data. It provides the dimensions of the data collected, and relates the information content with the need for simulating the Brazilian economy.
