IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpd/articl/v2y2019i2jbpa.22.41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rates and the Judgment of Government Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver James

    (University of Exeter)

  • Gregg G. Van Ryzin

    (Rutgers University-Newark)

Abstract

Many official statistics reported to the public appear in the form of rates, such as crimes or diseases per 100,000 people, with the choice of a base number (for example per 1,000,000, per 100,000, or per 1,000) remaining largely a matter of the choices or traditions of statistical agencies. Because prior studies have shown that people tend to judge the likelihood of an event based on the numerator alone (thus exhibiting denominator neglect), we hypothesize that ratio bias influences citizens’ perceptions of risks and conditions in society when interpreting real government statistics. To probe this hypothesis, we designed a pair of survey experiments in which a sample of US adults was randomly allocated to treatment groups receiving the same official statistics about violent crime (from the FBI) and infant mortality (from the CDC) but framed as rates with different base numbers (with an additional group receiving only the absolute number of events). We find some evidence of the expected ratio bias when violent crime is framed in terms of different base numbers, but the results for infant mortality were less consistent. For both violent crime and infant mortality, however, absolute numbers led to perceptions of the greatest risk and least favorable conditions, while individual rates (per person) led to perceptions of the least risk and the most favorable conditions. These findings suggest that citizens’ substantive judgments about risks and conditions in society may be influenced to some extent by the framing of rates by government statistical agencies when reporting official statistics to the public.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver James & Gregg G. Van Ryzin, 2019. "Rates and the Judgment of Government Performance," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 2(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:bpd:articl:v:2:y:2019:i:2:jbpa.22.41
    DOI: 10.30636/jbpa.22.41
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journal-bpa.org/index.php/jbpa/article/download/41/53
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.30636/jbpa.22.41?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilens, Martin, 2001. "Political Ignorance and Collective Policy Preferences," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(2), pages 379-396, June.
    2. Krishna, Aradhna & Slemrod, Joel, 2003. "Behavioral Public Finance: Tax Design As Price Presentation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(2), pages 189-203, March.
    3. M. Pandelaere & B. Briers, 2011. "How to Make a 29% Increase Look Bigger: Numerosity Effects in Option Comparisons," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/712, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    4. Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher & Dylan M. Smith & Peter A. Ubel & Angela Fagerlin, 2007. "Validation of the Subjective Numeracy Scale: Effects of Low Numeracy on Comprehension of Risk Communications and Utility Elicitations," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 27(5), pages 663-671, September.
    5. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i::p:-416 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Asmus Leth Olsen, 2018. "Precise performance: Do citizens rely on numerical precision as a cue of confidence?," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 1(1).
    7. Mario Pandelaere & Barbara Briers & Christophe Lembregts, 2011. "How to Make a 29% Increase Look Bigger: The Unit Effect in Option Comparisons," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(2), pages 308-322.
    8. Asmus Olsen, 2013. "The politics of digits: evidence of odd taxation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 59-73, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:cup:judgdm:v:15:y:2020:i:6:p:972-988 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Mario Herberz & Tobias Brosch & Ulf J. J. Hahnel, 2020. "Kilo what? Default units increase value sensitivity in joint evaluations of energy efficiency," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15(6), pages 972-988, November.
    3. Jonathan W. Leland & Mark Schneider, 2016. "Salience, Framing, and Decisions under Risk, Uncertainty, and Time," Working Papers 16-08, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    4. Santana, Shelle & Thomas, Manoj & Morwitz, Vicki G., 2020. "The Role of Numbers in the Customer Journey," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 138-154.
    5. Antonio J. Morales & Enrique Fatas, 2021. "Price competition and nominal illusion: experimental evidence and a behavioural model," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 607-632, December.
    6. Michal Mijal, 2012. "Computer games in the organization - psychological determinants (Gry komputerowe w organizacji - uwarunkowania psychologiczne)," Problemy Zarzadzania, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 10(38), pages 262-270.
    7. Thomas Hagedorn & Jan Wessel, 2022. "How Information on Emissions per Euro Spent can Influence Leisure Travel Decisions," Working Papers 35, Institute of Transport Economics, University of Muenster.
    8. Asmus Leth Olsen, 2018. "Precise performance: Do citizens rely on numerical precision as a cue of confidence?," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 1(1).
    9. Yao, Jun & Oppewal, Harmen, 2016. "Unit Pricing Increases Price Sensitivity Even When Products are of Identical Size," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 109-121.
    10. Hsin-Hsien Liu & Hsuan-Yi Chou, 2022. "Attribute specification effect on hedonic and utilitarian options," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 47(2), pages 322-341, May.
    11. Lembregts, Christophe & Pandelaere, Mario, 2014. ""A 20% income increase for everyone?": The effect of relative increases in income on perceived income inequality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 37-47.
    12. Ohlwein, Martin, 2022. "Same but different - The effect of the unit of measure on the valuation of a unit price," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    13. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:2:p:214-222 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Cadario, Romain & Parguel, Béatrice & Benoit-Moreau, Florence, 2016. "Is bigger always better? The unit effect in carbon emissions information," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 204-207.
    15. Arnaud Monnier & Manoj Thomas, 2022. "Experiential and Analytical Price Evaluations: How Experiential Product Description Affects Prices [The Utility of an Information Processing Approach for Behavioral Price Research]," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 49(4), pages 574-594.
    16. Asmus Leth Olsen, 2013. "Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(3), pages 365-371, May.
    17. Huang, Wen-Hsien & Cheng, Yi-Ching, 2015. "Threshold free shipping policies for internet shoppers," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 193-203.
    18. Si-Chu Shen & Yuan-Na Huang & Cheng-Ming Jiang & Shu Li, 2019. "Can asymmetric subjective opportunity cost effect explain impatience in intertemporal choice? A replication study," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(2), pages 214-222, March.
    19. Suk, Kwanho & Hwang, Sanyoung & Jeong, Yunjoo, 2022. "The 1-in-X effect in perceptions of risk likelihood differences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    20. Ho, Edward & Kowatsch, Tobias & Ilic, Alexander, 2014. "The Sales Velocity Effect on Retailing," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 237-256.
    21. Fecher, André & Robbert, Thomas & Roth, Stefan, 2020. "Per piece or per kilogram? Default-unit effects in retailing," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    22. Hou, Chenxuan & Sarigöllü, Emine, 2022. "Is bigger better? How the scale effect influences green purchase intention: The case of washing machine," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ratio bias; Rates; Risk perception; Performance measurement; Accountability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • Z00 - Other Special Topics - - General - - - General
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

    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:bpd:articl:v:2:y:2019:i:2:jbpa.22.41. 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: Sebastian Jilke (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journal-bpa.org .

    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.