IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/346.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public Ignorance and Estate Tax Repeal: The Effect of Partisan Differences and Survey Incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Krupnikov, Yanna
  • Levine, Adam S.
  • Lupia, Arthur
  • Prior, Markus

Abstract

We re-examine whether the broad support for repeal of the estate tax is a result of citizen ignorance. We find that increasing information about the estate tax or politics in general has very different effects on Republicans and Democrats. While high and low-information Republicans support estate tax repeal, Democratic support is higher among those who know less. However, most highly-informed people in both parties support repeal. We also show that standard surveys overestimate the extent of misinformation about the estate tax. Therefore, “ignorance” is not a compelling explanation of why so many people support estate tax repeal.

Suggested Citation

  • Krupnikov, Yanna & Levine, Adam S. & Lupia, Arthur & Prior, Markus, 2006. "Public Ignorance and Estate Tax Repeal: The Effect of Partisan Differences and Survey Incentives," MPRA Paper 346, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/346/1/MPRA_paper_346.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Slemrod, Joel, 2006. "The Role of Misconceptions in Support for Regressive Tax Reform," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 59(1), pages 57-75, March.
    2. Lupia, Arthur & Prior, Markus, 2005. "What Citizens Know Depends on How You Ask Them: Political Knowledge and Political Learning Skills," MPRA Paper 103, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Sep 2006.
    3. Markus Prior & Arthur Lupia, 2005. "What Citizens Know Depends on How You Ask Them: Experiments on Time, Money and Political Knowledge," Experimental 0510001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Hetherington, Marc J., 2001. "Resurgent Mass Partisanship: The Role of Elite Polarization," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(3), pages 619-631, September.
    5. Blair, Edward & Burton, Scot, 1987. "Cognitive Processes Used by Survey Respondents to Answer Behavioral Frequency Questions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(2), pages 280-288, September.
    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. John Lott & Kevin Hassett, 2014. "Is newspaper coverage of economic events politically biased?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 65-108, July.
    2. Arthur Lupia & Adam S. Levine & Jesse O. Menning & Gisela Sin, 2005. "Were Bush Tax Cut Supporters “Simply Ignorant?” A Second Look at Conservatives and Liberals in “Homer Gets a Tax Cut”," Public Economics 0510004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Hope, David & Limberg, Julian & Weber, Nina Sophie, 2021. "Why Do (Some) Ordinary Americans Support Tax Cuts for the Rich? Evidence From a Randomized Survey Experiment," SocArXiv chk9b, Center for Open Science.
    4. Emir Kamenica & Louisa Egan Brad, 2014. "Voters, dictators, and peons: expressive voting and pivotality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 159-176, April.
    5. Friedrich Heinemann & Eckhard Janeba, 2011. "Viewing Tax Policy Through Party‐Colored Glasses: What German Politicians Believe," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(3), pages 286-311, August.
    6. Karen Rowlingson & Amrita Sood & Trinh Tu, 2021. "Public attitudes to a wealth tax: the importance of ‘capacity to pay’," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3-4), pages 431-455, September.
    7. Baber, Hasnan, 2020. "Intentions to participate in political crowdfunding- from the perspective of civic voluntarism model and theory of planned behavior," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    8. Heinemann, Friedrich & Janeba, Eckhard, 2007. "The Globalization of Tax Policy: What German Politicians Believe," ZEW Discussion Papers 07-057, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Brad R. Taylor, 2016. "Exit and the Epistemic Quality of Voice," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 133-144, June.
    10. Ardanaz, Martín & Hübscher, Evelyne & Keefer, Philip & Sattler, Thomas, 2022. "Policy Misperceptions, Information, and the Demand for Redistributive Tax Reform: Experimental Evidence from Latin American Countries," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12607, Inter-American Development Bank.
    11. 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.
    12. Marino, Maria & Iacono, Roberto & Mollerstrom, Johanna, 2023. "(Mis-)perceptions, information, and political polarization," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119268, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Chirvi, Malte & Schneider, Cornelius, 2019. "Stated preferences for capital taxation - tax design, misinformation and the role of partisanship," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 242, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    14. Hope, David & Limberg, Julian & Weber, Nina, 2023. "Why do (some) ordinary Americans support tax cuts for the rich? Evidence from a randomised survey experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Matthew Kahn, 2007. "Environmental disasters as risk regulation catalysts? The role of Bhopal, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, Love Canal, and Three Mile Island in shaping U.S. environmental law," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 17-43, August.
    16. Chirvi, Malte & Schneider, Cornelius, 2020. "Preferences for wealth taxation: Design, framing and the role of partisanship," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 260, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.

    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. Blaufus, Kay & Chirvi, Malte & Huber, Hans-Peter & Maiterth, Ralf & Sureth-Slaone, Caren, 2020. "Tax misperception and its effects on decision making: A literature review," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 261, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    2. Gersbach, Hans & Jackson, Matthew O. & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2023. "Electoral competition with costly policy changes: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    3. Arslan, Ruben C. & Brümmer, Martin & Dohmen, Thomas & Drewelies, Johanna & Hertwig, Ralph & Wagner, Gert G., 2020. "How people know their risk preference," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10.
    4. Cruces, Guillermo & Perez-Truglia, Ricardo & Tetaz, Martin, 2013. "Biased perceptions of income distribution and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 100-112.
    5. Dürnberger, Andrea & Drasch, Katrin & Matthes, Britta, 2010. "Kontextgestützte Abfrage in Retrospektiverhebungen: Ein kognitiver Pretest zu Erinnerungsprozessen bei Weiterbildungsereignissen," IAB-Discussion Paper 201020, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    6. Markus Knell & Helmut Stix, 2021. "Inequality, perception biases and trust," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(4), pages 801-824, December.
    7. Marino, Maria & Iacono, Roberto & Mollerstrom, Johanna, 2023. "(Mis-)perceptions, information, and political polarization," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119268, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Igbaria, M. & Iivari, J., 1995. "The effects of self-efficacy on computer usage," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 587-605, December.
    9. Lupia, Arthur & Prior, Markus, 2005. "What Citizens Know Depends on How You Ask Them: Political Knowledge and Political Learning Skills," MPRA Paper 103, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Sep 2006.
    10. Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2009. "National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 9-86, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Stefan Krasa & Mattias Polborn, 2014. "Policy Divergence and Voter Polarization in a Structural Model of Elections," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(1), pages 31-76.
    12. LaLumia, Sara, 2008. "The effects of joint taxation of married couples on labor supply and non-wage income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1698-1719, July.
    13. Friedman,Jed & Beegle,Kathleen G. & De Weerdt,Joachim & Gibson,John, 2016. "Decomposing response errors in food consumption measurement : implications for survey design from a survey experiment in Tanzania," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7646, The World Bank.
    14. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "Understanding Tax Policy: How do People Reason?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2309-2369.
    15. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    16. Nora Cate Schaeffer & Judith A. Seltzer & Marieka Klawitter, 1991. "Estimating Nonresponse and Response Bias," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 20(1), pages 30-59, August.
    17. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    18. Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2008. "Tax Salience, Voting, and Deliberation," Working Papers 2009-25, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    19. Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2008. "National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life," Working Papers 1061, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    20. Lee, Richard & Lockshin, Larry & Cohen, Justin & Corsi, Armando, 2019. "A latent growth model of destination image's halo effect," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    estate tax; voter competence; survey research; experimental economics; public policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:346. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.