IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/54125.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What do Italian consumers know about Economic Data? An analysis based on the ISTAT Consumers Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Giovannini, Enrico
  • Malgarini, Marco

Abstract

Standard theory describes economic decisions as the result of optimising behaviour of well-informed economic agents. However, whether citizens are really well informed on economic data is still highly disputed. In order to investigate on this issue, since 2007 the Italian Consumers survey has incorporated a number of questions on the degree of knowledge about economic data. Surveys results show that the level of knowledge of Italian consumers is relatively low; moreover, knowledge seems to significantly vary across different groups of respondents, depending on individual characteristics and the perceived costs and benefits of acquiring information. Results provide evidence of deviation from the standard approach of full rationality in the information acquisition process: if agents are not always fully rational, delays in information acquisition should be taken into account by policy makers in designing appropriate interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovannini, Enrico & Malgarini, Marco, 2012. "What do Italian consumers know about Economic Data? An analysis based on the ISTAT Consumers Survey," MPRA Paper 54125, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2014.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:54125
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/54125/1/MPRA_paper_54125.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    2. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    3. Sergio De Nardis & Marco Malgarini, 2008. "Monitoring Italy 2007," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 98(2), pages 3-13, March-Apr.
    4. repec:pri:cepsud:99blinderkrueger is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Flora Fullone & Bianca Maria Martelli, 2008. "Re-thinking the ISAE Consumer Survey Processing Procedure," ISAE Working Papers 92, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY).
    6. Alan Blinder & Alan Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Working Papers 875, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    7. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Levy, Daniel & Snir, Avichai, 2022. "Potterian Economics," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 1, pages 1-32.
    2. Enrico Giovannini & Marco Malgarini & Raffaella Sonego, 2015. "What do Italian consumers know about Economic Data? Evidence from the Istat Consumer Survey," Rivista di statistica ufficiale, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY), vol. 17(3), pages 25-47.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Enrico Giovannini & Marco Malgarini & Raffaella Sonego, 2015. "What do Italian consumers know about Economic Data? Evidence from the Istat Consumer Survey," Rivista di statistica ufficiale, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY), vol. 17(3), pages 25-47.
    2. Michael J. Lamla & Thomas Maag, 2012. "The Role of Media for Inflation Forecast Disagreement of Households and Professional Forecasters," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1325-1350, October.
    3. Mark Doms & Norman J. Morin, 2004. "Consumer sentiment, the economy, and the news media," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-51, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Eggers, Andrew C. & Ellison, Martin & Lee, Sang Seok, 2021. "The economic impact of recession announcements," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 40-52.
    5. Vicente Maria R. & López Ana J., 2017. "Figuring Figures: Exploring Europeans’ Knowledge of Official Economic Statistics," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 33(4), pages 1051-1085, December.
    6. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2024. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public: Promise or False Hope?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 425-457, June.
    7. Hayo, Bernd & Neumeier, Florian, 2017. "The (In)validity of the Ricardian equivalence theorem–findings from a representative German population survey," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 162-174.
    8. Bennani, Hamza, 2018. "Media coverage and ECB policy-making: Evidence from an augmented Taylor rule," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 26-38.
    9. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2020_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2017. "Public Attitudes toward Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Representative German Population Survey," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 42-69, February.
    11. Bernd Hayo & Ummad Mazhar, 2014. "Monetary Policy Committee Transparency: Measurement, Determinants, and Economic Effects," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 739-770, September.
    12. Jennifer Elena Feichtmayer & Klaus Gründler, 2021. "Global Evidence on Misperceptions and Preferences for Redistribution," CESifo Working Paper Series 9381, CESifo.
    13. Munday, Tim & Brookes, James, 2021. "Mark my words: the transmission of central bank communication to the general public via the print media," Bank of England working papers 944, Bank of England.
    14. Cars Hommes & Julien Pinter & Isabelle Salle, 2023. "What People Believe about Monetary Finance and What We Can(‘t) Do about It: Evidence from a Large-Scale, Multi-Country Survey Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 10574, CESifo.
    15. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    16. Nils Brouwer & Jakob de Haan, 2024. "What Drives Households’ Knowledge about Cryptocurrencies?," Working Papers 799, DNB.
    17. Bellani, Luna & Berriochoa, Kattalina & Kapteina, Mark & Schwerdt, Guido, 2024. "Information Provision and Support for Inheritance Taxation: Evidence from a Representative Survey Experiment in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 17099, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Lergetporer, Philipp & Piopiunik, Marc & Simon, Lisa, 2021. "Does the education level of refugees affect natives’ attitudes?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    19. Meta Brown & John Grigsby & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Jaya Wen & Basit Zafar, 2016. "Financial Education and the Debt Behavior of the Young," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(9), pages 2490-2522.
    20. Baumberg, Ben, 2016. "Benefit `myths'? The accuracy and inaccuracy of public beliefs about the benefits system," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103512, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Conrad, Christian & Enders, Zeno & Glas, Alexander, 2022. "The role of information and experience for households’ inflation expectations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household information acquisition; information and knowledge; consumer confidence; statistical literacy; media exposure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C83 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:54125. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.