Independent variables

To examine individual-level variation in public views concerning economic growth and the environment, we focus on three sets of explanatory variables: (i) knowledge about the economy and the environment; (ii) ideology and personal values; and (iii) socio-demographic variables. In addition, two variables are used to control for possible influences of the economic crisis. Table 3.1 provides the descriptive statistics and the coding for each of the variables we employ in the analyses.

Six questions were designed to obtain a picture of people’s knowledge about the GDP.

Most of these questions were based on often-voiced criticisms regarding the estimation of the GDP metric. Examples of these criticisms are the lack of accounting for environmental damages and the depletion of natural resources, or social (e.g., income inequality) costs (e.g., van den Bergh, 2009; Kubiszewski et al., 2013). Response options ranged from “definitely false”, “probably false”, “probably true” to “definitely true”, and included a “don’t know”

option. All questions and the descriptive statistics are displayed in Appendix A3.1. On the basis of the responses, we constructed a GDP knowledge index for each respondent: namely, by counting the number of correct (“definitely” false/true) answers to the six questions. This results in a mean score of 1.32 (SD = 1.33) on scale from 0 to 6 correct answers. Cronbach’s

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alpha test of internal consistency is 0.56, a value that has been regarded as acceptable in past research for tests of economic knowledge with similar numbers of items (e.g., Walstad and Rebeck, 2002; Walstad et al., 2010). The resulting GDP knowledge scale is used in subsequent analyses reported below. It should be noted that we do not use both “definitely”

and “probably” false/true responses to count correct answers, because it results in a significantly lower Cronbach’s alpha (0.43).

Table 3.1. Overview and descriptive statistics of the independent variables

Variables Description Mean (SD) or %

Socio-demographic

Gender Dummy: 1 (female) 50.7%

Age 18 to 64 years 40.14 (12.57)

Household income 1 (≤ 1000 €) to 5 (≥ 3000 €) 2.88 (1.34)

Educational attainment 1 (primary education) to 4 (postgraduate degree) 2.60 (0.76)

Employed Dummy: 1 (yes) 62.1%

Knowledge

GDP knowledge Index of six questions (see Table A1 in Appendix A3.1), 0 (0 correct answers) to 6 (6 correct answers)

1.32 (1.33) Self-rated knowledge about the

economy

1 (not at all informed) to 7 (very well informed) 4.52 (1.29) Self-rated knowledge about the

environment

1 (not at all informed) to 7 (very well informed) 4.35 (1.29) Personal values, and political and

religious ideology

Religiosity 1 (not religious) to 5 (very religious) 2.09 (1.16)

Political orientation 1 (left-wing) to 9 (right-wing) 3.98 (1.99)

Self-enhancement values (power, achievement, hedonism)

0 (the value is opposed to my principles) to 8 (the value is of supreme importance as a guiding principle in my life)

3.42 (1.73) Self-transcendence values

(universalism, benevolence)

0 (opposed to my principles) to 8 (supreme importance as a guiding principle in my life)

5.98 (1.61) Conservation values (tradition,

conformity, security)

0 (opposed to my principles) to 8 (supreme importance as a guiding principle in my life)

5.19 (1.67) Environmental values (respect for

the Earth, environmental protection)

0 (opposed to my principles) to 8 (supreme importance as a guiding principle in my life)

6.03 (1.67)

Economic crisis in Spain

Personal impact crisis 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) 5.70 (1.42) Crisis influenced response 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) 5.37 (1.39)

In addition to the index of assessed GDP knowledge, two further single items measured self-reported knowledge about the environment (e.g., McCright and Dunlap, 2011;

Whitmarsh, 2011) and the economy (e.g., Blinder and Krueger, 2004; Wobker et al., 2014).

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Having measures of both assessed and self-reported knowledge is useful, since prior research has sometimes found weak relationships between the two concepts (Stoutenborough and Vedlitz, 2013; Wobker et al., 2014).

Two single items are used to measure the effects of political orientation and religiosity, respectively. Note that we did not ask for a specific religious affiliation, given that Roman Catholicism is by far the largest religious community in Spain (CIS, 2014). Having religious faith has been shown to be related to both economic and environmental attitudes. For example, Guiso et al. (2003) find that religious beliefs are associated with economic attitudes which are “conducive to higher per capita income and growth”. As regards the environment, empirical research remains inconclusive about the direction of the relationship between (Christian) religiosity and environmental concern and behavior (Gifford and Nilsson, 2014).

Political orientation has been shown to influence both economic opinions (e.g., Blinder and Krueger, 2004) and environmental opinions (e.g., McCright and Dunlap, 2011).

Next, we measured respondents’ personal values. Schwartz (1992) developed a theory of basic human values which include Power, Achievement, Hedonism, Stimulation, Self-direction, Universalism, Benevolence, Tradition, Conformity and Security (see also, Schwartz 2012). We used a short version of the Schwartz value survey comprising 10 items. The reliability and validity of this version has been generally demonstrated by Lindeman and Verkasalo (2005), and it has been used in other research on environmental issues (e.g., Poortinga et al., 2011). The 9-point response scale for each single item ranged from 0 (“the value is opposed to my principles”) to 8 (“the value is of supreme importance as a guiding principle in my life”). In addition, we used two items measuring environmental values adapted from past research (Groot and Steg, 2008). Five higher-order value types were constructed by averaging the associated single items. Four of the constructed scales had a good reliability (according to Cronbach’s alpha): self-enhancement (power, achievement, hedonism; 0.75); self-transcendence (universalism, benevolence; 0.82); conservation values

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(tradition, conformity, security; 0.80); and environmental values (respect for the Earth, environmental protection; 0.92). The fifth value scale, openness to change (stimulation, self-direction; 0.58), had a comparatively lower reliability. Because of this, and to circumvent problems of multicollinearity that we encountered, we excluded this variable in subsequent regression analyses.

Finally, two variables are used to control for a possible influence of the Spanish economic crisis on the survey results. The first question asked respondents to indicate if the recent economic crisis has affected them personally. The second question asked respondents at the end of the questionnaire to consider whether the economic situation in Spain influenced their responses. The motivation for including both questions is that all survey questions related to growth referred to “rich and industrialized countries” in general and therefore not explicitly to Spain.