Expert authority and support for COVID-19 measures in Germany and the UK: a survey experiment

Figures & data

Table 1. Case selection for the survey experiment.

Country	Ministry	Institute	University	International organisation
Germany	Federal Ministry of Health	Robert Koch Institute	Charité Berlin	World Health Organisation
United Kingdom	Department of Health and Social Care	National Institute for Health Research	Oxford University	World Health Organisation

Figure 1. Average Treatment Effect of experts’ endorsements on support for COVID-19 measures. Note: both countries (black), UK (dark grey) and Germany (light grey), whiskers are 95% confidence intervals.

Table 2. Interaction between expertise and treatment (H2), both countries.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	Ministry	Institute	University	WHO
Treatment at low expertise	−0.2652^+	−0.3107^+	−0.7261***	−0.5758**
	(0.1507)	(0.1836)	(0.2124)	(0.1749)
Expertise	0.1401***	0.1401***	0.0986**	0.1035***
	(0.0323)	(0.0358)	(0.0368)	(0.0304)
Treatment# expertise	0.0915*	0.0808	0.1577**	0.1580***
	(0.0466)	(0.0496)	(0.0563)	(0.0457)
Germany dummy	−0.5084***	−0.4845***	−0.4783***	−0.3173***
	(0.0596)	(0.0668)	(0.0721)	(0.0653)
COVID-19 concern	0.4723***	0.4631***	0.4721***	0.4890***
	(0.0323)	(0.0372)	(0.0359)	(0.0366)
Constant	2.1270***	2.0588***	2.1703***	2.0114***
	(0.1578)	(0.1897)	(0.1864)	(0.1779)
N	1545	1397	1311	1599
R ^2	0.353	0.338	0.319	0.348

Standard errors in parentheses;

+ p < 0.10,

*p < 0.05,

**p < 0.01,

***p < 0.001.

Figure 2. Adjusted predictions based on Model 4 focussing on the World Health Organisation. Note: whiskers are 95% confidence intervals, visualisation based on package written by Helmdag (2018).

Table 3. Interaction between expertise and treatment (H2).

	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)	(11)	(12)
	Ministry	Institute	University	WHO	Ministry	Institute	University	WHO
Country	GER	GER	GER	GER	UK	UK	UK	UK
Treatment at low expertise	−0.4297*	−0.5087*	−0.7896**	−0.3802	−0.0152	−0.0622	−0.6390*	−0.8247**
	(0.2075)	(0.2390)	(0.2844)	(0.2367)	(0.1964)	(0.2754)	(0.3182)	(0.2640)
Expertise	0.1730***	0.1930***	0.1170*	0.1423**	0.0939*	0.0539	0.0658	0.0598
	(0.0448)	(0.0475)	(0.0524)	(0.0458)	(0.0450)	(0.0529)	(0.0477)	(0.0403)
Treatment # expertise	0.1397*	0.1295*	0.1645*	0.1083	0.0250	0.0185	0.1501^+	0.2156***
	(0.0662)	(0.0632)	(0.0752)	(0.0683)	(0.0593)	(0.0758)	(0.0834)	(0.0643)
COVID-19 concern	0.5543***	0.4546***	0.5011***	0.5024***	0.3587***	0.4479***	0.4195***	0.4718***
	(0.0394)	(0.0398)	(0.0436)	(0.0426)	(0.0538)	(0.0711)	(0.0634)	(0.0620)
Constant	1.2903***	1.4396***	1.5582***	1.5113***	2.6422***	2.3802***	2.4385***	2.2544***
	(0.1712)	(0.2074)	(0.2254)	(0.2017)	(0.2568)	(0.3261)	(0.2937)	(0.2741)
N	784	790	731	779	761	607	580	820
R ^2	0.370	0.330	0.301	0.301	0.197	0.240	0.226	0.325

Standard errors in parentheses; ⁺ p < 0.10,

*p < 0.05,

**p < 0.01,

***p < 0.001.

Table 4. Interaction between neutrality and treatment (H3), both countries.

	(13)	(14)	(15)	(16)
	Ministry	Institute	University	WHO
Treatment at low bias	−0.0335	−0.1600	−0.0675	0.0107
	(0.1433)	(0.1260)	(0.1447)	(0.1351)
Bias	−0.0932**	−0.1257***	−0.0783*	−0.0835**
	(0.0336)	(0.0323)	(0.0391)	(0.0308)
Treatment # bias	−0.0056	0.0465	−0.0637	−0.0289
	(0.0463)	(0.0458)	(0.0550)	(0.0440)
Germany dummy	−0.4982***	−0.4573***	−0.4949***	−0.4124***
	(0.0636)	(0.0649)	(0.0747)	(0.0655)
COVID-19 concern	0.5097***	0.5096***	0.4911***	0.5290***
	(0.0326)	(0.0325)	(0.0347)	(0.0346)
Constant	2.6371***	2.6762***	2.6216***	2.4961***
	(0.1532)	(0.1613)	(0.1770)	(0.1679)
N	1433	1313	1250	1452
R ^2	0.320	0.329	0.306	0.326

Standard errors in parentheses;

+ p < 0.10,

*p < 0.05,

**p < 0.01,

***p < 0.001.

Table 5. Interaction between exposure and treatment (H4), both countries.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	Ministry	Institute	University	WHO
Treatment at low exposure	0.0620	−0.3445*	−0.5057**	−0.2021
	(0.1961)	(0.1683)	(0.1630)	(0.2272)
Exposure	0.0454	0.0103	−0.0147	−0.0132
	(0.0316)	(0.0307)	(0.0291)	(0.0300)
Treatment # exposure	−0.0205	0.0668^+	0.0923*	0.0296
	(0.0429)	(0.0374)	(0.0431)	(0.0464)
Germany	−0.5198***	−0.5481***	−0.5017***	−0.3752***
	(0.0609)	(0.0777)	(0.0725)	(0.0686)
COVID-19 concern	0.5101***	0.5026***	0.5044***	0.5316***
	(0.0326)	(0.0336)	(0.0349)	(0.0378)
_cons	2.1939***	2.4125***	2.4685***	2.2980***
	(0.1961)	(0.1918)	(0.1872)	(0.2102)
N	1582	1421	1369	1617
R ^2	0.318	0.308	0.301	0.302

Standard errors in parentheses;

+ p < 0.10,

*p < 0.05,

**p < 0.01,

***p < 0.001.

Helmdag, Jan (2018). INTERACTPLOT: Stata Module to Generate Plots for Interaction Terms of Multiplicative Regressions . Statistical Software Components. Boston College Department of Economics.

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