Department of Public Policy (DPP) faculty Eric J. Brunner, Mark D. Robbins, and Bill Simonsen’s on-going research in the broad area of citizen’ willingness to pay for public services has produced three published journal articles and one current working paper with additional papers in development.  This research stream began with a paper examining bond referenda wording.  In Minnesota, bond referenda are required to state in bold, capital letters: “by voting “yes” on this ballot question, you are voting for a property tax increase” while neighboring Wisconsin does not require such language.   Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen find that this referenda wording reduces yes votes for Minnesota bond referenda by 4-7 percentage points compared to Wisconsin, all else equal.  This paper was published in Public Budgeting and Finance.

The second paper in this research stream uses a nationally representative sample where respondents were randomly placed into experimental conditions that vary the amount of information about potential tax impacts.  Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen found a persistent negative effect of tax information on the probability of support for school bond referenda. Specifically, the probability of voting yes decreases by between 6 and 9 percentage points depending on the tax information that is provided. This paper was published in Public Administration Review.

The third paper specifically looks at the influence of the word “tax” on citizen support for services compared to using the synonym revenue.  This analysis was also based on a nationally representative sample with respondents randomly placed into conditions where they were asked about their support for school and fire services.  The only difference between the two conditions is the inclusion of the word tax or revenue.  Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen found that use of the word tax lowers support by about 6-8 percentage points.  This paper was published in Public Budgeting and Finance.

Policymakers have argued that local government efficiency can be enhanced though inter-jurisdictional competition.  This argument rests on the largely untested assumption that voters are aware of the degree of efficiency of their local government and respond to inter-jurisdictional differences in efficiency by voting with their feet.  Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen current working paper finds that actual school district efficiency tracks with citizens’ perceived efficiency.  This paper was presented at the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM) conference in Washington, DC from September 29 through October 2, 2021.

Brunner, Robbins, and Simonsen have additional papers planned as a part of this research stream, including examining the influence of race on perceptions of efficiency