The Public (Mis)Understanding of Fiscal Trade-offs – Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Poland
The Public (Mis)Understanding of Fiscal Trade-offs – Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Poland

Summary/Abstract: The literature on fiscal attitudes offers evidence of an interesting pattern: citizens simultaneously want higher government spendingand lower taxes. However, recent studies argue that this may be just an artifact arising from misleading survey design. Whenproperly informed about the fiscal trade-offs, citizens express much more coherent views. We contribute to the discussion usinga survey of 1,800 adult citizens in Poland. By a split-sample experiment, we show that the answers about the desired role of thestate vary greatly depending on whether the question includes a reference to taxes. Using the regression framework, we identifygender, educational level and individual income as significant determinants of the scale of misunderstanding of fiscal trade-offs.

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