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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jul 17.
Published in final edited form as: J Public Econ. 2016 Oct 27;144:91–108. doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.10.004

Table 2.

Belief and scientific knowledge by level of news consumption

Panel A: Global-warming beliefs
Reads newspaper daily Does not read newspaper daily Difference N
Solid evidence of global warming 0.7124 (0.0161) 0.6819 (0.0175) 0.0305 (0.0238) 1500
Panel B: Scientific knowledge
Follows news closely Does not follow news closely Difference N
Radiation sunscreen protects against 0.8810 (0.0139) 0.7875 (0.0191) 0.0935 (0.0236) 1006
Nanotechnology deals with things that are … 0.6945 (0.0198) 0.6025 (0.0228) 0.0920 (0.0302) 1006
Major concern about overuse of antibiotics 0.8403 (0.0157) 0.7035 (0.0213) 0.1368 (0.0265) 1006
Gas that causes temperatures to rise 0.6527 (0.0204) 0.5213 (0.0233) 0.1314 (0.0310) 1006
Resource extracted in “fracking” 0.6249 (0.0208) 0.4080 (0.0229) 0.2169 (0.0309) 1006
Share of scientific questions correct 0.7386 (0.0120) 0.6046 (0.0138) 0.1341 (0.0183) 1006
p-value of test that global-warming difference is equal to scientific-knowledge difference 0.0006

Note: Data are from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2013). Data in panel A come from the June News Interest/Believability Survey (June 2006). The “reads newspaper daily” column consists of those who answer “yes” to the question “Some people are so busy that they don’t get to read a newspaper every day. How about you – do you get a chance to read a newspaper just about every day, or not?” The “solid evidence of global warming” row reports the fraction of respondents who answered “yes” to the question “From what you’ve read and heard, is there solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades, or not?” Data in panel B come from the 2013 Omnibus Survey (March 2013). The “follows news closely” column consists of those who answer “very closely” or “fairly closely” to at least three of the following five questions: “Did you follow (i) reports about the condition of the US economy, (ii) automatic government spending cuts that began on March 1st, (iii) reports about the US stock market, (iv) the death of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, (v) Catholic cardinals meeting in Rome to select a new pope very closely, fairly closely, not too closely, or not at all closely?” The “radiation sunscreen protects against” row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “ultraviolet” to the question “Which one of the following types of solar radiation does sunscreen protect the skin from?” The “nanotechnology deals with things that are…” row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “small” to the question “Does nanotechnology deal with things that are extremely…?” The “major concern about overuse of antibiotics” row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “it can lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria” to the question “Which of these is a major concern about the overuse of antibiotics?” The “gas that causes temperatures to rise” row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “carbon dioxide” to the question “What gas do most scientists believe causes temperatures in the atmosphere to rise?” The “resource extracted in ‘fracking”’ row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “natural gas” to the question “Which natural resource is extracted in a process known as ‘fracking’?” The “share of scientific questions correct” row is the share correct across the five scientific knowledge questions. The last row reports the p-value of the test that the global-warming difference is equal to the difference in the share of scientific questions correct. All calculations use recommended sample weights. Standard errors are reported in parentheses.