Trust in official statistics. An econometric search for determinants. The case of Luxembourg Dr Serge Allegrezza. Director General. Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (STATEC) Paper prepared for the 16th Conference of IAOS OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 19-21 September 2018 Session 2.C., Day 1, 19/09, 14:30: Communication & statistical literacy, strategic issues Dr Serge Allegrezza
[email protected] STATEC Trust in official statistics. An econometric search for determinants. The case of Luxembourg Prepared for the 16th Conference of the International Association of Official Statistics (IAOS) OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 19-21 September 2018 2 ABSTRACT In a complex society, flooded with a deluge of data from the Internet, trust in official statistics and in the national institutes of statistics play a key role in preserving public numbers as a reference and benchmark. This paper takes the view of the demand-side of statistics, investigating the perception of the trustworthiness of public numbers and the functioning of the national institutes of statistics. Trust is a matter of perception and opinion, which is as important as the supply-side view, i.e. compliance with peer reviewed processes and quality standards. The difficulty to assert statistical facts as reality, in particular in a context of “post-truth” social media and populist discourse, has increased. Representative surveys on the trust of statistics are quite rare and available data is not systematically analysed. Comparative cross country studies at macro and micro level are missing. This study uses two surveys dating back to 2015 and 2017, carried out by an independent pollster (TNS-ILRES) which interviewed over 2500 residents in each wave in Luxembourg.