IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v28y2000i1p48-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revenue Structures, The Perceived Price of Government Output, and Public Expenditures

Author

Listed:
  • Vaughan Dickson

    (University of New Brunswick)

  • Weiqiu Yu

    (University of New Brunswick)

Abstract

This article examines how revenue structures, through fiscal illusion effects, influence government spending. It does so with a regression model in which public spending depends on the perceived price of public services and other demand variables. The authors construct a perceived price term that provides a more general framework for testing together several hypotheses of fiscal illusion. The perceived price depends on public revenues, decomposed into nine revenue sources, and is a weighted average of how fully taxpayers recognize the cost of each revenue source. For a sample of the 10 Canadian provinces from 1961 to 1992, the authors find that revenue structures influence spending, that tax revenues are perceived more acutely than other major revenue sources (borrowing, grants), and that some taxes are recognized more than others. The results can be viewed as consistent with debt illusion, flypaper, and income-elastic versions of fiscal illusion while casting doubt on using the Herfindahl index to represent fiscal illusion. The authors also find learning by taxpayers (declining fiscal illusion) during the period.

Suggested Citation

  • Vaughan Dickson & Weiqiu Yu, 2000. "Revenue Structures, The Perceived Price of Government Output, and Public Expenditures," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(1), pages 48-65, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:28:y:2000:i:1:p:48-65
    DOI: 10.1177/109114210002800103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114210002800103
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114210002800103?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. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Goodman, Robert P, 1973. "Private Demands for Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 280-296, June.
    2. Niskanen, William A., 1978. "Deficits, government spending, and inflation : What is the evidence?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 591-602, August.
    3. Niskanen, William A, 1975. "Bureaucrats and Politicians," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 617-643, December.
    4. Dollery, Brian E & Worthington, Andrew C, 1996. "The Empirical Analysis of Fiscal Illusion," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 261-297, September.
    5. Mueller,Dennis C. (ed.), 1997. "Perspectives on Public Choice," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521553773.
    6. Ashworth, John, 1995. "The Empirical Relationship between Budgetary Deficits and Government Expenditure Growth: An Examination Using Cointegration," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 50(1), pages 1-18.
    7. Winer, Stanley L, 1983. "Some Evidence on the Effect of the Separation of Spending and Taxing Decisions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 126-140, February.
    8. Richard Wagner, 1976. "Revenue structure, fiscal illusion, and budgetary choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 45-61, March.
    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. Francois Facchini, 2018. "What Are the Determinants of Public Spending? An Overview of the Literature," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 46(4), pages 419-439, December.
    2. Trang Hoang & Craig S. Maher, 2022. "Fiscal condition, institutional constraints, and public pension contribution: are pension contribution shortfalls fiscal illusion?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 93-124, December.

    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. Facchini, Francois, 2014. "The determinants of public spending: a survey in a methodological perspective," MPRA Paper 53006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. D.P. Doessel & Abbas Valadkhani, 2002. "Public Finance and The Size of Government: A Literature Review and Econometric Results for Fiji," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 108, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.
    3. Roberto Dell’Anno & Paulo Mourao, 2012. "Fiscal Illusion around the World," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(2), pages 270-299, March.
    4. Francois Facchini, 2018. "What Are the Determinants of Public Spending? An Overview of the Literature," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 46(4), pages 419-439, December.
    5. F. Forte, 1997. "The measurement of 'fiscal burden' on GDP instead than on national net value added produced: a chapter in fiscal illusion," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 50(202), pages 337-375.
    6. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    7. Roberto Dell'Anno & Morena De Stefano, 2014. "Un indicatore sintetico dell?Illusione Finanziaria. Un tentativo di stima per l?Italia," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(1), pages 65-92.
    8. Boris Begović & Tanasije Marinković & Marko Paunović, 2017. "A Case For Introduction Of Numerical Fiscal Rules In Serbian Constitution," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 62(212), pages 7-42, January -.
    9. Martin Baekgaard & Søren Serritzlew & Jens Blom-Hansen, 2016. "Causes of Fiscal Illusion: Lack of Information or Lack of Attention?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 26-44, June.
    10. Manuel Ja n-Garc a, 2017. "A Demand Determinants Model for Public Spending in Spain," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(4), pages 372-386.
    11. Turnbull, Geoffrey K., 1998. "The Overspending and Flypaper Effects of Fiscal Illusion: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-26, July.
    12. Fabio Padovano, 2013. "Are we witnessing a paradigm shift in the analysis of political competition?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 631-651, September.
    13. Haug, Peter, 2009. "Shadow Budgets, Fiscal Illusion and Municipal Spending: The Case of Germany," IWH Discussion Papers 9/2009, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    14. Gemmell, Norman & Morrissey, Oliver & Pinar, Abuzer, 2003. "Tax perceptions and the demand for public expenditure: evidence from UK micro-data," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 793-816, November.
    15. Jeffrey Zax, 1988. "The Effects of Jurisdiction Types and Numbers on Local Public Finance," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Federalism: Quantitative Studies, pages 79-106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Hammed Amusa & Robert Mabunda & Ramos Mabugu, 2008. "Fiscal Illusion At The Local Sphere: An Empirical Test Of The Flypaper Effect Using South African Municipal Data1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(3), pages 443-465, September.
    17. Andrew Abbott & Philip Jones, 2016. "Fiscal Illusion and Cyclical Government Expenditure: State Government Expenditure in the United States," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 63(2), pages 177-193, May.
    18. Gemmell, Norman & Morrissey, Oliver & Pinar, Abuzer, 1999. "Fiscal illusion and the demand for government expenditures in the UK," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 687-704, November.
    19. Brian Dollery & Andrew Worthington, 1999. "Fiscal Illusion at the Local Level: An Empirical Test Using Australian Municipal Data," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 75(1), pages 37-48, March.
    20. Ankie Scott-Joseph, 2022. "Debt financing and fiscal illusion: evidence from Caribbean states," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(9), pages 1-25, September.

    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:sae:pubfin:v:28:y:2000:i:1:p:48-65. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.