world forum on statistics, knowledge and politics - istanbul, june 27 th 2007 f. fullone (*) m.gamba...

World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27 th 2007

What Do Citizens Know about Statistics: Results What Do Citizens Know about Statistics: Results of an OECD- ISAE Survey on Italian Consumersof an OECD- ISAE Survey on Italian Consumers

F. Fullone (*) M.Gamba (**) E. Giovannini (**) M. Malgarini (*)F. Fullone (*) M.Gamba (**) E. Giovannini (**) M. Malgarini (*)__________________________

(*) (*) ISTITUTO DI STUDI E ANALISI ECONOMICA ISTITUTO DI STUDI E ANALISI ECONOMICA Piazza dell’ Indipendenza, 4 00185 – ROMA (Italy)

(**)(**) ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENTORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT2 Rue André-Pascal 75016- Paris (France)

_____________________________

Measuring the Progress of Societies Measuring the Progress of Societies World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and PoliticsWorld Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics

Istanbul, June 27Istanbul, June 27thth 2007 2007


An introduction to the ISAE An introduction to the ISAE SurveySurvey on on ItalianItalian ConsumersConsumers

Every month a 2-step representative sample of 2,000 consumers is selected

The survey includes qualitative questions on the personal situation of

consumers and general questions on the country

It also provides some insights on the consumers, among which:

Number of persons in the household

Type of household, including information on mortgages, rent etc.

Area of residence and number of people living in the municipality

Age, gender, professional qualification and education of the respondent

Income quartile


The OECD/ ISAE Survey on Statistical KnowledgeThe OECD/ ISAE Survey on Statistical Knowledge

In March and April 2007, a number of questions have been added

concerning the statistical knowledge of Italian citizens:

MARCH 07: GDP growth, Inflation rate, Unemployment rate, Deficit/

GDP ratio and the Euro/ Dollar exchange rate

APRIL 07: (on top of March’s questions) size of Italian population,

Italian life expectancy at birth, R&D expenditure, literacy of Italian

students and CO2 emissions

MARCH & APRIL: two questions on the importance and desire of

being informed and on the media used to gather relevant

information are added.

Quantitative questionsQuantitative questions LOW Response rates to quantitative questions

On average, Italian citizens tend to be OVEROPTIMISTIC about GDP growth and

PESSIMISTIC for the remaining variables

UNCERTANTY among respondents was rather HIGH - as indicated by Std. Dev

The MEDIAN is generally closer to true values than the mean, indicating that

answers distributions are RIGHT- SKEWED

GDP Inflation UnemplDeficit/

GDP

MarchMarch AprilApril AverageAverage MarchMarch AprilApril AverageAverage MarchMarch MarchMarch

Response rate (%) 27 19.2 23.1 32.6 23.6 28.1 32.1 12.7

Don't Know (%) 70.5 72.8 71.7 65.1 68.8 66.9 65.5 84.5

Refuse to answer (%) 2.5 8 5.2 2.3 7.6 5 2.5 2.8

Average 2.7 2.1 2.5 4.5 2.9 3.8 14.5 8.5

Median 2 1.9 2 2.4 2.1 2.2 10 3.4

P25 1.5 1.3 1.5 2 1.9 2 7 2

P75 2.4 2.2 2.2 3 3 3 16 4.4

Std. Dev. 3.7 1.8 3.1 8.7 2.9 6.9 13 14.5

True value 1.9* 1.9* 1.8** 1.7*** 6.8**** 4.4*

(*) 2006, (**) February, (***) March, (****) III Quarter 2006, seasonally adjusted.


Qualitative Qualitative questionsquestions

Higher response rates for qualitative

questions ( between 60 and 87%)

HOWEVER…

Correct answers are uncommon, especially

concerning population, life expectancy and

CO2 emissions

Results on qualitative questionsResults on qualitative questions

Response rate Don't KnowRefuse to

answerWeighted Survey answers (true values in RED)

Euro/ Dollar (%) 73.1 25.3 1.7

Increased 40.1

Stable 19.8

Decreased 13.2

R&D Expenditure (%)

71.4 26.6 2

Higher 5.1

Equal 17.7

Lower 48.6

Population (%) 63.4 34.5 2.1

Between 50ml and 58ml 39.5

Between 58ml and 59ml 4.5

More than 59ml 19.4

Less than 76 years 23.5

Life expectancy (%) 77.4 20.4 2.2 Between 76 and 80 years 31.6

More than 80 years 22.3

CO2 emissions (%) 89.7 8.5 1.9

Increased a lot 61.5

Increased 16.4

Stable 8.7

Decreased 0.4

Decreased a lot 2.7

Literacy (%) 78.5 19.5 2

Much more qualified 5

More qualified 6.7

Equally qualified 26.9

Less qualified 31.8

Much less qualified 8.1


The Importance of statistical information: The Importance of statistical information: resultsresults

• Italian citizens believing that

information is “extremely” or

“very” important are only a 33%33%

of the population

• More than 15%15% believe that

information is not very important or

not important at all

• More than 40%40% of the respondents

do not want to be more informed

about these issues

How important is to be informed How important is to be informed on the issues we have discussed on the issues we have discussed

so far? so far?

Average Average (%) (%)

Extremely important 8.2

Very important 24.4

Important 46.1

Not very important 12.4

Not important 3.2

Don't know 4

Refuse to answer 1.7

Would you like to be more informed on these Would you like to be more informed on these issues?issues?

Yes 54.8

No 40.5

Don’t Know/ Refuse to Answer 4.7


Results on Channels of InformationResults on Channels of Information

• TELEVISION is the most often cited

channel used to acquire statistical

information

• NEWSPAPERS & INTERNET are cited

by respectively 52 and 23% of the

respondents

• Opinions shared among friends and

relatives (cited by 11,2% of

respondents) and political and civic

leaders (7%) lag behind the radio

(almost 19%) as other relevant

sources of statistical information

Information channels %Information channels %

Television 82

Radio 18.6

Newspapers, periodicals 51.9

Internet 23.3

Political, opinion leaders 7

Friends, relative 11.2

Refuse to answer 1.8


Building a Building a KnowledgeKnowledge Score Score

• What are the determinants of statistical knowledge?

Method employed:

Construct a “Knowledge Score” aggregating the answers to the 5

five questions included in March’s questionnaire

Assign a score to each respondent based on the accuracy of

individual answers to each specific knowledge question

Compute the ABSOLUTE VALUE of the individuals errors (i.e. the

difference between individual answer and official data)

SORT Individual errors and calculate a “RAW SCORE” for each

question

Compute a PERCENTILE RANK SCORE (PRS)

AGGREGATE by averaging each PRS and get the “Knowledge

Score”


A Model for Knowledge - CONCEPTA Model for Knowledge - CONCEPT

• Model estimation using the Knowledge score as dependent variable

allowing the residuals to be heteroskedastic and use robust

methods in the OLS estimates :

Ki = f (SDi, Di, Si) + ui Ki = knowledge score SDi = socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent Di = desire of being informed Si = source used for being informed ui = unobserved error term, assumed to be uncorrelated with

the regressors


A Model for Knowledge - VARIABLES A Model for Knowledge - VARIABLES

• Control variables

GENDER (M/F) AGE ( <30 years, 30- 49, 50-64, and 65+) ZONE OF RESIDENCE (North West, North East, Center and

South of Italy) EMPLOYMENT STATUS (self-employed, employed,

unemployed and out of LF) LEVEL OF EDUCATION (Primary school, Secondary school

and University level and higher), and INCOME (divided into quartiles).

• Desire to be informed and the channels used to acquire information are measured on the basis of the answers provided to the survey questions

OUTCOMES- Socio-demographic factorsOUTCOMES- Socio-demographic factors

•Knowledge is HIGHER:

For men with respect to women

For people between 30 and 65 years of age

For better educated people

For self-employed and inactive people (including students) with respect to dependent workers

•It is LOWER for people leaving in the South of Italy

•It is NOT INFLUENCED by income

VARIABLESVARIABLES BETABETA STD DEVSTD DEV T-STATT-STAT

Professional category (baseline: Employed)

Self employed 4.1 1.7 2.3 **

Unemployed 1 1.1 0.9

Out of labour force 1.4 0.4 3.5 ***

Age (baseline: up to 30 years)

30-50 years 4.01 2.1 1.91 *

50-65 years 9.49 2.15 4.41 ***

> 65 years 1.88 2.35 0.8

Gender (baseline: Male)

Female -12.08 1.12 -10.75 ***

Zone of residence (baseline: North-West)

North-East 0.01 1.62 0.01

Center -0.94 1.6 -0.59

South -5.7 1.46 -3.91 ***

Education (baseline: primary school)

High School or less 5.05 1.27 3.99 ***

University degree 8.72 1.89 4.62 ***

Income (baseline: 1st quartile)

Second Quartile -0.25 1.56 -0.16

Third Quartile 0.7 1.57 0.44

Fourth Quartile 2.03 1.51 1.34

Statistically Significance : * = 10% ** = 5% *** = 1%


OUTCOMES- Importance and OUTCOMES- Importance and desiredesire toto bebe informedinformed

• Knowledge is NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT for people thinking it is VERY important to be informed

• Knowledge is NOT SIGNIFICANTLY influenced by the desired to be more informed about these subjects

VARIABLESVARIABLES BETABETA STD DEVSTD DEV T-STATT-STAT

Importance of being informedImportance of being informed

(baseline: Extremely important)

Very Important -1.8 1.99 -0.9

Important -7.42 1.86-

3.98***

Not very important -11.45 2.47-

4.64***

Absolutely not important -19.29 4.15

-4.65

***

Desire to be more informedDesire to be more informed

(baseline: No Desire)

Yes 0.71 1.26 0.56

***= Statistically Significant at 1%


OUTCOMES- Information ChannelsOUTCOMES- Information Channels

• Knowledge SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER for:

Italians reading NEWSPAPERS to achieve economic information

Italians using INTERNET

• NO significant EFFECTS of watching television, listening to the radio and discussing economic issues among friends and relatives or political and civic leaders

VARIABLESVARIABLES BETABETA Std DevStd Dev T-STATT-STAT

Television 0.43 1.58 0.27

Radio 1.39 1.37 1.01

Newspapers 5.15 1.15 4.46***

Internet 2.95 1.47 2 **

Political, civic leaders -2.08 1.73 -1.2

Friends, relatives -0.19 1.74 -0.11

**= 5% ***= 1%


Questions?Questions?

……..Thank you!..Thank you!

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world forum on statistics, knowledge and politics - istanbul, june 27 th 2007 f. fullone (*) m.gamba...

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