Democracy dies in darkness without Official Data.

ongoing

My main ambitious is to put at the centre of the debate the Official Statistics in Democracy for Policy-Makers, Researchers and all the citizens. In my experience, I noticed that at times also within the National Statistics Offices (NSOs) they do not know the importance that NSO has for democracy and policy-makers. Democracy dies in darkness without Official Data. Official Statistics is a public good, it is vital for democracy. I want to analyze the empirical and theoretical relation between Official Statistics and Democracy and formalize ten new variables that Official Statistics should produce and disseminate to improve society, economy and the relationship among countries. A key word in my project is the word: ‘multidisciplinary’. Those disciplines are, among others, Statistics, Economics and Political Science. The relation between democracy and Official Statistics is an almost unexplored scientific topic with economical and societal worldwide impact. Media and policy-makers use the official data everyday, because National Statistics Offices (NSOs) are in every single country. The official statistics are produced and disseminated by the NSO. Every day, we listen to the news about the employment rate, the GDP, mortality rate, car accidents, etc. All these statistics are collected, produced and then disseminated by the NSOs around the world. Also, COVID data should be produced and disseminated by NSOs as I explained in one of the top journals on Official Statistics, see Di Gennaro (2020) . Can we organize political elections without an independent and trustable official data produced and disseminated by the National Official Statistics Offices? For instance, trustable data on employment rate and national economic growth (Gross Domestic Product, GDP) are critical for the voters that want to evaluate the government. My research is in line with the value of the European Union and United Nations, and the Sustainable Development Goals.