Beliefs About Public Debt and the Demand for Government Spending

Christopher Roth, Sonja Settele and Johannes Wohlfart
Additional contact information
Sonja Settele: CEBI, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
Johannes Wohlfart: CEBI, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen

No 20-05, CEBI working paper series from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI)

Abstract: We examine how beliefs about the debt-to-GDP ratio affect people's attitudes towards government spending and taxation. Using representative samples of the US population, we run a series of experiments in which we provide half of our respondents with information about the debt-to-GDP ratio in the US. Based on a total of more than 4,000 respondents, we find that most people underestimate the debt-to-GDP ratio and reduce their support for government spending once they learn about the actual amount of debt, but do not substantially alter their attitudes towards taxation. The treatment effects seem to operate through changes in expectations about fiscal sustainability and persist in a four-week follow-up.

Keywords: Government Debt; Political Attitudes; Beliefs; Expectations; Information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E60 P16 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 88 pages
Date: 2020-01-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econ.ku.dk/cebi/publikationer/working-papers/CEBI_WP_05-20.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Beliefs about public debt and the demand for government spending (2022)
Working Paper: Beliefs About Public Debt and the Demand for Government Spending (2022)
Working Paper: Beliefs about Public Debt and the Demand for Government Spending (2020)
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:kud:kucebi:2005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEBI working paper series from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI) Oester Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Hoffmann ().