Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
2024
Department
Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
Abstract
We explore whether voters' willingness to approve government spending in bond elections is affected by how costs are presented. Using an original survey experiment, we examine willingness to approve bonds, randomizing both the total cost of the bond and the framing of the cost as either a personal cost or an aggregate amount. We find that respondents are less supportive of bonds when the bond is framed as a personal expense and that respondents are more cost-responsive when they see personal costs. There is also substantial heterogeneity based on the respondent's partisanship and the policy domain of the bond.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Public Budgeting & Finance
Volume
44
Issue
1
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Lang, C., Pearson-Merkowitz, S., & Scott, Z. (2024). Voter support for bond referenda: Does it matter if costs are presented as aggregate vs. personal costs? Public Budgeting & Finance, 44(1), 14-37. https://doi.org/10.1111/pbaf.12354
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/pbaf.12354
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License