Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment

This paper presents the results of a revealed-choice experiment testing the theoretical predictions of political economy models regarding public support for a publicly provided private good financed with proportional income taxes when individuals can purchase the good privately and either continue t...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Buckley, N., Cuff, K., Hurley, J., Mestelman, S., Thomas, Stephanie, Cameron, D.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier BV * North-Holland 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/50706
_version_ 1848758522014072832
author Buckley, N.
Cuff, K.
Hurley, J.
Mestelman, S.
Thomas, Stephanie
Cameron, D.
author_facet Buckley, N.
Cuff, K.
Hurley, J.
Mestelman, S.
Thomas, Stephanie
Cameron, D.
author_sort Buckley, N.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper presents the results of a revealed-choice experiment testing the theoretical predictions of political economy models regarding public support for a publicly provided private good financed with proportional income taxes when individuals can purchase the good privately and either continue to consume public provision (‘top-up’) or forego public provision (‘opt-out’), but in each case continue to pay income taxes. Our laboratory results confirm behavior is consistent with the predicted majority-preferred tax rate under mixed financing with top-up, but we identify preferences for significantly higher rates of public provision than predicted under mixed financing with opt-out. Using non parametric regression analysis, we explore the relationship between individuals’ top-up and opt-out decisions and both their income levels and the implemented tax rates.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:45:19Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-50706
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:45:19Z
publishDate 2015
publisher Elsevier BV * North-Holland
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-507062018-03-06T08:00:49Z Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment Buckley, N. Cuff, K. Hurley, J. Mestelman, S. Thomas, Stephanie Cameron, D. This paper presents the results of a revealed-choice experiment testing the theoretical predictions of political economy models regarding public support for a publicly provided private good financed with proportional income taxes when individuals can purchase the good privately and either continue to consume public provision (‘top-up’) or forego public provision (‘opt-out’), but in each case continue to pay income taxes. Our laboratory results confirm behavior is consistent with the predicted majority-preferred tax rate under mixed financing with top-up, but we identify preferences for significantly higher rates of public provision than predicted under mixed financing with opt-out. Using non parametric regression analysis, we explore the relationship between individuals’ top-up and opt-out decisions and both their income levels and the implemented tax rates. 2015 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/50706 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.016 Elsevier BV * North-Holland fulltext
spellingShingle Buckley, N.
Cuff, K.
Hurley, J.
Mestelman, S.
Thomas, Stephanie
Cameron, D.
Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment
title Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment
title_full Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment
title_fullStr Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment
title_full_unstemmed Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment
title_short Support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: A controlled laboratory experiment
title_sort support for public provision of a private good with top-up and opt-out: a controlled laboratory experiment
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/50706