News and Views on Public Finances: A Survey Experiment

Jan Behringer, Lena Dräger, Sebastian Dullien and Sebastian Gechert

Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Abstract: We use novel German survey data to investigate how perceptions and information about public finances influence attitudes towards public debt and fiscal rules. On average, people strongly underestimate the debt-to-GDP ratio, overestimate the interest-to-tax-revenue ratio and favor a tighter German debt brake. In an information treatment experiment, people consider public debt to be a more (less) severe problem once they learn the actual debt-to-GDP or interest-to-tax-revenue ratio is higher (lower) than their estimates. However, the treatment effects partly vanish when anchoring respondents' beliefs with historical public debt figures. We find no treatment effects on attitudes towards the debt brake.

Keywords: public debt; fiscal rules; information treatment; expectations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 E60 H31 H60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2024-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-pbe and nep-pub
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https://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-715.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: News and Views on Public Finances: A Survey Experiment (2024)
Working Paper: News and Views on Public Finances: A Survey Experiment (2024)
Working Paper: News and Views on Public Finances: A Survey Experiment (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-715

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