Voting between Tax Regimes to Fund a Public Good
نویسندگان
چکیده
We study experimentally how taxpayers choose between an income tax and a commodity tax to fund a public good. We find that voters support the income-tax regime, although they would earn higher payoffs in the alternative commodity-tax regime. We discuss and evaluate empirically alternative behavioral accounts to explain voting behavior. We find that inequality aversion and efficiency concerns matter for voting. We find no evidence for opportunistic voting or mental accounting.
منابع مشابه
Tax Morale and Optimal Taxation
We study experimentally how taxpayers choose between two tax regimes to fund a public good. The first-best tax regime imposes a general, distortion-free income tax. However, this tax cannot be enforced. The second-best alternative supplements the income tax by a specific commodity tax. This tax cannot be evaded but distorts optimal consumption choices, instead. The result is that a large majori...
متن کاملWORKING PAPERS Are We Taxing Ourselves? How Deliberation and Experience Shape Voting on Taxes
We let consumers vote on tax regimes in experimental markets. We test if taxes on sellers are more popular than taxes on consumers, i.e. on voters themselves, even if taxes on sellers are inefficiently high. Taxes on sellers are more popular if voters underestimate the extent of tax shifting in the market. We show that inexperienced voters are prone to such a tax-shifting bias, that experience ...
متن کاملOn the (sequential) majority choice of public good size and location
This paper studies majority voting over the size and location of a public good when voters di¤er both in income and in their preferences for the public good location. Public good provision is nanced either by a lump sum tax or by a proportional income tax. We analyze both the simultaneous and the sequential determinations of the public goods size and location. We show that, while the choice o...
متن کاملCalibration of Stated Willingness to Pay for Public Goods with Voting and Tax Liability Data: Provision of Landscape Amenities in Switzerland
Controversy remains over the degree of hypothetical bias in contingent valutation method (CVM) estimates of values for public goods, especially for public goods with significant passive-use values. This paper uses an “indifferent voter” approach to calibrate stated WTP for a proposed public good increase with actual WTP implied by voting and tax liability data. Our data are from a CVM survey an...
متن کاملTax Salience, Voting, and Deliberation
Tax incentives can be more or less salient, i.e. noticeable or cognitively easy toprocess. Our hypothesis is that taxes on consumers are more salient to consumersthan equivalent taxes on sellers because consumers underestimate the extent of taxshifting in the market. We show that tax salience biases consumers’ voting on taxregimes, and that experience is an effective de-biasing ...
متن کامل