Letter to the Reader

The production of reliable economic data and estimates for measuring the creative economy have been a challenge in Brazil. There have been many advances in recent years, including the Observatório Itaú Cultural Data Panel. We still do not, however, have an internationally recognizable integrated indicator able to provide a broad public with a simplified, direct and understandable measurement of the creative economy’s impact. To arrive at a reliable estimate of this number, the Observatório proposed a project for constructing the GDP of the culture and the creative industries (CCI) economic sector in Brazil. The results of this process are presented in this issue.

The first article, by Danilo Miranda, underscores not only the importance of improving the methodologies to account for the economic impact of culture in Brazil, to measure it and to make it visible, but also the relevance of studies such as the one carried out by the Observatório Itaú Cultural, for the formulation of more ambitious and well-structured public and institutional policies for the sector.

The second article reports on the consulting provided by national and international specialists concerning the best methods for measuring the creative economy as a whole and the specificities of this economic sector in Brazil. The contributions by national specialists were collected using the Delphi method and incorporated into the calculation. The collaborations of the international specialists were partially integrated and generated another four articles for this edition, which discuss how to measure the innovations brought by digital technologies.

The digital frontiers are explored based on different perspectives and approaches, posing questions that range from the measuring of e-commerce flows to the valuation of digital property and products offered free of charge, as well as questions about cultural participation in digital ecosystems. Each of the articles presents reflections that shed light on a broad research agenda. A discussion about this intercrossing of approaches is also presented in a complementary article.

Finally, we present the detailed methodology in the first numbers of the GDP of the CCI economic sector in Brazil. We consider these numbers as initial ones for being the outcome of a continuing effort of collective construction, which tends to be refined and improved according to the dynamic development of the creative economy and the obtainment or availability of new data.

Enjoy the reading!