IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecr/v51y2018i3p418-425.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Populism and Fiscal Illusion

Author

Listed:
  • Sinclair Davidson

Abstract

There is a widespread concern that anti‐elitist or populist opinion is on the rise. The policy concern is that political opportunists would exploit voter rational ignorance for their own cynical purposes. In this article I demonstrate that, in the field of taxation, this sort of behaviour already occurs. Fiscal illusion can be described as deceiving taxpayer‐voters into paying more tax than they would otherwise agree to. Taxpayers are already victims of political opportunism unrelated to the rise of populism.

Suggested Citation

  • Sinclair Davidson, 2018. "Populism and Fiscal Illusion," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 51(3), pages 418-425, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:51:y:2018:i:3:p:418-425
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12296
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12296
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8462.12296?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davidson, Sinclair & Fry, Tim R.L. & Jarvis, Kelly, 2006. "Direct democracy in Australia: Voter behavior in the choice between constitutional monarchy and a republic," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 862-873, December.
    2. Bryan Caplan, 2007. "Introduction to The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies," Introductory Chapters, in: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, Princeton University Press.
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jante Parlevliet & Massimo Giuliodori & Matthijs Rooduijn, 2021. "Populist attitudes, fiscal illusion and fiscal preferences: evidence from Dutch households," Working Papers 731, DNB.
    2. Jante Parlevliet & Massimo Giuliodori & Matthijs Rooduijn, 2023. "Populist attitudes, fiscal illusion and fiscal preferences: evidence from Dutch households," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 201-225, October.
    3. Brad R. Taylor, 2020. "The psychological foundations of rational ignorance: biased heuristics and decision costs," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 70-88, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hillman, Arye L., 2010. "Expressive behavior in economics and politics," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 403-418, December.
    2. Jo Thori Lind & Dominic Rohner, 2017. "Knowledge is Power: A Theory of Information, Income and Welfare Spending," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(336), pages 611-646, October.
    3. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    4. Jonathan Baron, 2012. "The ‘culture of honor’ in citizens’ concepts of their duty as voters," Rationality and Society, , vol. 24(1), pages 37-72, February.
    5. Daniel J. Smith, 2020. "Turn-taking in office," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 205-226, June.
    6. Joseph McMurray, 2017. "Ideology as Opinion: A Spatial Model of Common-Value Elections," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 108-140, November.
    7. Rode, Martin & Sáenz de Viteri, Andrea, 2018. "Expressive attitudes to compensation: The case of globalization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 42-55.
    8. repec:wly:soecon:v:80:4:y:2014:p:926-937 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Randall G. Holcombe, 2020. "Progressive Democracy: the ideology of the modern predatory state," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 287-301, March.
    10. Leif Helland & Lars Monkerud, 2013. "Electoral agency in the lab: Learning to throw out the rascals," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(2), pages 214-233, April.
    11. William F. Shughart II & Diana W. Thomas, 2014. "What Did Economists Do? Euvoluntary, Voluntary, and Coercive Institutions for Collective Action," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 926-937, April.
    12. Apolte, Thomas & Müller, Julia, 2022. "The persistence of political myths and ideologies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. Eric Groenendyk & Yanna Krupnikov, 2021. "What Motivates Reasoning? A Theory of Goal‐Dependent Political Evaluation," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 180-196, January.
    14. Jennings, Colin, 2011. "The good, the bad and the populist: A model of political agency with emotional voters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 611-624.
    15. Emily Chamlee-Wright & Virgil Storr, 2010. "Expectations of government’s response to disaster," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 253-274, July.
    16. Pavel Yakovlev, 2007. "Ideology, Shirking, and the Incumbency Advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(33), pages 1-6.
    17. David Hirshleifer, 2008. "Psychological Bias as a Driver of Financial Regulation," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(5), pages 856-874, November.
    18. Blesse, Sebastian & Heinemann, Friedrich & Krieger, Tommy, 2021. "Informationsdefizite als Hindernis rationaler Wirtschaftspolitik: Ausmass, Ursachen und Gegenstrategien. Eine Studie mit Unterstützung der Brigitte Strube Stiftung," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 241989.
    19. Dwight Lee, 2015. "The beast is not easily starved," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 275-285, September.
    20. Dwight Lee & J. Clark, 2014. "Buchanan and Tullock ignore their own contributions to expressive voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 113-118, October.
    21. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2011. "Expressive Political Behaviour: Foundations, Scope and Implications," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 645-670, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:51:y:2018:i:3:p:418-425. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.