Communicating Data Uncertainty: Multi-Wave Experimental Evidence for UK GDP

Ana Galvão and James Mitchell

No 21-28R, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Abstract: Economic statistics are commonly published without estimates of their uncertainty. We conduct two waves of a randomized controlled online experiment to assess if and how the UK public understands data uncertainty. A control group observes only the point estimate of GDP. Treatment groups are presented with alternative qualitative and quantitative communications of GDP data uncertainty. We find that most of the public understands that GDP numbers are uncertain. Quantitative communications of data uncertainty help align the public’s subjective probabilistic expectations of data uncertainty with objective estimates, but do not decrease trust in the statistical office.

Keywords: Experiments; Data Uncertainty; Uncertainty Communication; Data Revisions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C82 D80 E01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60
Date: 2021-12-23, Revised 2022-07-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-exp and nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202128r Full Text (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Communicating Data Uncertainty: Multiwave Experimental Evidence for UK GDP (2024)
Working Paper: Communicating Data Uncertainty: Multi-Wave Experimental Evidence for U.K. GDP (2021)
Working Paper: Communicating Data Uncertainty: Multi-Wave Experimental Evidence for U.K. GDP (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedcwq:93544

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202128r

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by 4D Library ().