Credibility Conditions for Official Statistics

Credibility Conditions for Official Statistics

International Year of Statistics 2013
The determinants of confidence, political
independence and data utilisation.
The case of STATEC
Dr Serge Allegrezza
STATEC
25 novembre 2013
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Outline
What is trust…(in statistics)?
The perception of official statistics in
Luxembourg
Determinants of trust, political independence
and data utilisation (The case of STATEC)
Some practical lessons
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Trust
• Definition (Reinhard et al, 2006): “Trust is one’s belief in another’s
reliability, predictability, and fairness”
• Marzano : trust is fundamental (makes life in society possible) and
dangerous (risk of betrayal)
• Antonym of trust ? : distrust (fr:“défiance”) and mistrust
(fr:“méfiance”)
• Trust at macro level (institutions) and micro level (fellow citizens)
• Age of distrust(“bowling alone”) : tendency of decay of social
capital, consequences of globalization, urbanization and social
networks?
• Impact of economic crisis on trust in political institutions and
government
• Trust in official statistics: a special case
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The almost irrational, illiterate user
of complex statistics
• Mathematical difficulty of statistical/probability
reasoning (D.Kahneman, J. Haidt, U.Bram)
• Illiterate users : surveys show the decrepancy of basic
statistical figures and actual statistical numbers
• Methodologcial complexity of data gathering,
processing and presentation
• Rational inattention : excuse for ignorance?
• Entails trust in official statistics : Mark Twain and
“statistical lies”
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Trust in the OECD approach
Source : OECD « measuring trust in official statistics », june 2011
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Source: Eurobarometer 323, January 2010
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Results from the 2011 survey on STATEC
and official statistics of Luxembourg
statec
100
50
0
m é dias
Parle m e nt
Gouve rne m e nt
s e rvice s publics
jus tice
police
bcl
banque s
s tate c
Source TNS ILRES poll « cinquantenaire », N= 2015 persons, 2011, calculations: sa
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Results from the 2011 survey on STATEC
and official statistics of Luxembourg
Good opinion: 86%
Usefulness of data: 90%
Il est nécessaire de connaître ces données
J’ai une opinion positive à l'égard du STATEC
Freq. Percent
Cum.
Tout à fait d’accord
Plutôt d’accord
Plutôt pas d’accord
Pas du tout
d’accord
Je ne sais pas
523
1,223
157
36
76
25.96
60.69
7.79
25.96
86.65
94.44
1.79
3.77
96.23
100.00
freq
Tout à fait d’accord
Plutôt d’accord
Plutôt pas d’accord
Pas du tout d’accord
Je ne sais pas
2,015
777
1,04
142
19
37
38.56
51.61
7.05
0.94
1.84
2,015
100.00
Les données fournes par le STATEC ne sont pas
influencées politiquement
%Cum
38.56
90.17
97.22
98.16
100.00
Tout à fait d’accord
Plutôt d’accord
Plutôt pas d’accord
Pas du tout d’accord
Je ne sais pas
Total
Total
Total
%t
Political independence:64%
fréq
311
987
482
88
147
%
15.43
48.98
23.92
4.37
7.30
2,015
100.00
%cum
15.43
64.42
88.34
92.70
100.00
100.00
Source TNS ILRES poll « cinquantenaire », N= 2015 persons, 2011, calculations: sa
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Determinants of trust
Logit regressions
Use
Indep
media
Q6_8
sexe
CAT_ACT
EDU_2
EDU_3
EDU_4
EDU_5
EDU_6
EDU_7
EDU_8
age2
age3
age4
age5
lux
rev2
rev3
rev4
rev5
rev6
rev7
rev8
rev9
rev10
rev11
rev12
rev13
prof2
prof3
prof4
prof6
prof7
confpub
_cons
N
pseudo R-sq
confpub
0.605*
0.178
-0.125
-0.550*
-0.510*
0.408
-0.278
0.386
0.212
0.583
-0.0278
.
0.950
-0.0404
0.375
0.721
0.443
1.488***
Indep
0.366***
.
-0.147
1.469
1.439
1.737
1.634
1.373
1.582
0.845
1.420
1.894
1.401
-0.518
0.343
-1.656*
.
-0.229
0.540
0.658***
-0.152
0.0425
0.0536
0.476
0.427
0.497
0.619*
0.989***
1.128
0.449
0.124
0.445*
0.531**
0.732***
-0.372***
0.371***
-0.150
-0.525***
0.552***
-0.00653
0.647*
1.185***
1.155***
1.529***
1.665***
0.645
0.882*
-0.861***
-0.921***
-0.525**
-0.881***
0.127
0.727
1.436
0.848
0.820
1.024
1.063
1.077
0.787
0.803
0.772
1.232
0.771
-0.139
0.0583
0.162
0.471
-0.0387
0.205
-1.600*
1.445
-0.254
-0.0560
0.304
-0.337
-0.440
-0.0672
-0.248
-0.105
-0.143
0.0992
-0.350
0.350
-0.0642
0.597
1.528*
0.232
0.558*
-1.431
1984
0.104
use
2015
0.055
Trust => + use +survey participation + Lux
- male
Independence => + use + media +education
+age - Lux - male
Use => + independence +survey
participation + male +education
- age + trust
2015
0.075
t statistics in parenthèses * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001
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Lessons to be learned
• Trust is a tricky concept
• Trust is fragile and hard to preserve
• Taking care of the quality of relations with interviewees
during and after data collection
• Combating “statistical discriminations” (gender, non
nationals, less educated)
• The critical and knowledgeable citizen
• « We look at statistics as facts we discover and not as
numbers we create »(Joel Best,2001)
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