Who Pays for the Welfare-State? Preferences for Redistribution and Perceptions of the Costs thereof

Link to full Submission in Progress

The basic assumption of rational behavior with full information implies that attitudes toward redistribution derive from individual income. This, however, is not supported by opinion data. The present article examines cognitive gaps that weaken the link between income and preference for progressive transfers, as voters are usually unable to predict if these would incur in any drawbacks for them. Such mechanism introduces measurement errors in survey proxies that conceal the tax burden or place it in a vague category such as “the rich”. Using an original survey-experiment, I demonstrate the importance of apprising participants of redistribution costs and who would pay for them. Information describing taxes determines the level of support and establishes how attitudes relate to income. Provision of tax exemption brackets, instead of loosely defined taxpayers, boosts the explanatory power of income. The conclusions point to critical implications that call for revision of popular behavioral analysis measurement tools.

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