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

Krupnikov, Yanna, Levine, Adam S., Lupia, Arthur and Prior, Markus (2006): Public Ignorance and Estate Tax Repeal: The Effect of Partisan Differences and Survey Incentives. Forthcoming in: National Tax Journal September 2006 59 (2006)

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.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: estate tax; voter competence; survey research; experimental economics; public policy
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue > H20 - General; H - Public Economics > H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents > H30 - General; K - Law and Economics > K1 - Basic Areas of Law > K10 - General
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