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

What Do Citizens Know about Statistics: Results of an OECD- ISAE Survey on Italian Consumers. F. Fullone (*) M.Gamba (**) E. Giovannini (**) M. Malgarini (*) __________________________ (*) ISTITUTO DI STUDI E ANALISI ECONOMICA Piazza dell’ Indipendenza, 4 00185 – ROMA (Italy)

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

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  1. What Do Citizens Know about Statistics: Results of an OECD- ISAE Survey on Italian Consumers F. Fullone (*) M.Gamba (**) E. Giovannini (**) M. Malgarini (*) __________________________ (*) ISTITUTO DI STUDI E ANALISI ECONOMICA Piazza dell’ Indipendenza, 4 00185 – ROMA (Italy) (**)ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT 2 Rue André-Pascal 75016- Paris (France) _____________________________ Measuring the Progress of Societies World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics Istanbul, June 27th 2007 World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27th 2007

  2. An introduction to the ISAE Survey on ItalianConsumers • 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 World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27th 2007

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

  4. Quantitative 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

  5. Qualitative questions Higher response rates for qualitative questions ( between 60 and 87%) HOWEVER… Correct answers are uncommon, especially concerning population, life expectancy and CO2 emissions World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27th 2007

  6. Results on qualitative questions

  7. The Importance of statistical information: results • Italian citizens believing that information is “extremely” or “very” important are only a 33% of the population • More than 15% believe that information is not very important or not important at all • More than 40% of the respondents do not want to be more informed about these issues World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27th 2007

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

  9. Building a Knowledge 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” World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27th 2007

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

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

  12. OUTCOMES- 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

  13. OUTCOMES- Importance and desiretobeinformed • 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 World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27th 2007

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

  15. Questions? …..Thank you! F.fullone@isae.it Michela.gamba@OECD.org Enrico.giovannini@OECD.org M.malgarini@isae.it World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Politics - Istanbul, June 27th 2007

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