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Trust, Statistics & KnowledgeEvidence from the EC Special Eurobarometer survey 2009
Marco Mira d’ Ercole (OECD),A. Papacostas(Eurobarometer)
The 3rd OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policy”
“Charting Progress, Building Visions, Improving Life”Busan, Korea - 27 October 2009
Outline
• Findings from Special Eurobarometer survey 2009 (more available on Special EUROBAROMETER 323)
• Implications: is more statistical information adding to people’s knowledge?
2
Special EB survey on “Europeans’ knowledge of economic indicators”
• Goal: Measure knowledge in basic economic statistics and trust in the official statistical system
• Methods: face-to-face interviews with around 1000 people per country (27 European countries)
• Fieldwork: September 2009 (with previous survey conducted in March-April 2007)
• Responses based on open questions: “correct” answers are those falling within range of +/- 20% of actual value
3
Main results: GDP growth
“What was the official growth rate of the economy (measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product) in (OUR COUNTRY) in 2008? I can tell you that
this figure is between -1% and 15%”
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
RO LV PT CYM
TBG EL
LU UK IT PL FR LT CZ
UE27 E
U27EE IE SI
SK DK FIDE ES
HU SE BE AT NL
DK Correct answer Wrong answerQA50 EBS 67.2 QC1T EBS 72.1
2009
4
Main results: inflation
“What was the official inflation rate, the rate of which consumer prices increased or decreased, in (OUR COUNTRY) in 2008? I can tell you
that the exact figure is between -1% and 20%”
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
PT RO MT CY BG LU IT UK EE LT LV FR CZ
UE27 EU27
SK EL PL SIDK SE DE IE ES FI
BE ATHU NL
DK Correct answer Wrong answerQA52 EBS 67.2 QC2 EBS 72.1
2009
5
Main results: unemployment
“What was the official unemployment rate, the percentage of active people who do not have a job, in (OUR COUNTRY) in 2008? I can tell you that the exact
figure is between 0% and 20%”
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
RO MT CY PT BG UK IT LT LV EE
UE27 EU27 IE FR LU PL SI
CZ SK DE ES EL ATDK FI
HU NL BE SE
DK Correct answer Wrong answer
2009
QA54 EBS 67.2 QC4 EBS 72.1 6
How has Europeans’ statistical knowledge changed over time? GDP growth
QA54 EBS 67.2 QC4 EBS 72.1
7
How has Europeans’ statistical knowledge changed over time? Inflation
QA54 EBS 67.2 QC4 EBS 72.1
8
How has Europeans’ statistical knowledge
changed over time? Unemployment
QA54 EBS 67.2 QC4 EBS 72.1
9
Differences in perceptions among countries with the same unemployment rate
Share of respondents by number of correct answers
10
QC8.1 For each of the following domains, would you say that the situation in (OUR COUNTRY) is better or
less good than the average of the European Union countries?
The employment situation in (OUR COUNTRY) - % EU
BE
BG
CY
LT
HU
FI
UE27
CZ
DK
DE
EE
IE
EL
ES
FRIT
LV
LU
MT
NL
AT
PLPT
RO
SI
SK
SE
UK
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
-100 -90 -80 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The employment situation in (OUR COUNTRY) (difference "better" - "worse") in %
Un
emp
loym
ent
rate
in 2
008
in %
How is “statistical knowledge” distributed in society? (a)Share of respondents by number of correct answers
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?
Socio-economic characteristics of correct answers
– Certain groups are more likely to answer correctly (i.e. men, highly educated people, managers, white collars workers)
– Positive but weaker effects for other variables (e.g. those with internet connections and those who have little difficulty in paying their household bills)
– Overall, even people who are very educated and in managerial positions have very low levels of “statistical knowledge”(e.g. 22% of managers and 18% of people with more than 20 years of education for question on UNR)
How is “statistical knowledge” distributed in society? (b)
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?Importance of statistics
QC5 Some people say that statistical information play an important
role in business, public and political decision making. Personally,
do you think that, in (OUR COUNTRY), political decisions are made
on the basis of statistical information?
- % EU
16%
16%
8%
6%
12%
12%
45%
46%
19%
20%
0% 100%
EB 72.1
Aug.-Sep. 2009
EB 67.2
Mar.-Apr. 2007
Yes, certainly Yes, probably No, probably not No, certainly not DK
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?Trust in official statistics
QC6 Personally, how much trust do you have in the official
statistics in (OUR COUNTRY), for example the statistics on
unemployment, inflation or economic growth? Would you say that
you tend to trust these official statistics or tend not to trust them?
44%
46%
46%
45%
10%
9%
0% 100%
EB 72.1
Aug.-Sep. 2009
EB 67.2
Mar.-Apr. 2007
Tend to trust Tend not to trust DK
- % EU
14
Is more statistical information adding to people’s knowledge? (a)
• Context– Information play crucial role in shaping expectations and
outcomes; democratic accountability requires knowledge of the outputs/outcomes delivered by various policies
– Massive developments of ICT in past few years have significantly reduced the costs of producing statistics
– Statistics have become more accessible but plethora of information can create confusion rather than contribute to people’s knowledge
15
• Implications for official statistics
– The traditional role of NSOs is at stake: NSOs have traditionally functioned as information providers
– They need to change to become “knowledge builders”, measuring their impact (also) by looking at the extent to which they contribute to societal knowledge
– They need to expand the boundary of their activity, to cover communication, numeracy, impact assessment, etc.
Is more statistical information adding to people’s knowledge? (b)
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• Implications for functioning of democratic institutions
– In a world of costly information, citizens will spend more efforts in gathering information bearing on their private decisions than on public policies
– Votes face the difficult task of monitoring the activities of large hierarchies staffed by people who have information and expertise unavailable to the average voter
• The relation between trust in statistics and trust in public institutions in therefore crucial
Is more statistical information adding to people’s knowledge? (b)
17
Trust in Statistics and in Institutions
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OECD work on trust
• OECD Electronic Group on Measurement of trust in official statistics
• “What Do Citizens Know about statistics? The results of an OECD/ ISAE survey on Italian Consumers”, ISAE/OECD 2007 and 2009
• “Statistics, Knowledge and Governance”, OECD 2008
• “How good is trust? Measuring trust and its role for the progress of societies”, OECD 2009
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Thank you for your attention!
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