Information and Preferences for Public Spending: Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments

Philipp Lergetporer, Guido Schwerdt, Katharina Werner and Ludger Woessmann
Additional contact information
Philipp Lergetporer: University of Munich
Guido Schwerdt: University of Konstanz

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: The electorates’ lack of information about the extent of public spending may cause misalignments between voters’ preferences and the size of government. We devise a series of representative survey experiments in Germany that randomly provide treatment groups with information on current spending levels. Results show that such information strongly reduces support for public spending in various domains from social security to defense. Data on prior information status on school spending and teacher salaries shows that treatment effects are strongest for those who initially underestimated spending levels, indicating genuine information effects rather than pure priming effects. Information on spending requirements also reduces support for specific education reforms. Preferences on spending across education levels are also malleable to information.

Keywords: public spending; information; preferences; education spending; survey experiment JEL Classification: H11; D83; D72; H52; I22; P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dem, nep-edu and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear ... 2-2016_woessmann.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Information and Preferences for Public Spending: Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments (2016)
Working Paper: Information and Preferences for Public Spending: Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments (2016)
Working Paper: Information and Preferences for Public Spending: Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cge:wacage:292

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Snape ().