IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v45y2017i4p511-537.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Perception of Gas Tax Paid Influence Support for Funding Highway Improvements?

Author

Listed:
  • Ronald C. Fisher
  • Robert W. Wassmer

Abstract

The issue for this research is whether perception of the rate and amount of fuel taxes paid by an individual influences his or her support for funding highway improvements from any source of revenue. A survey of likely California and Michigan voters demonstrates that they often overestimate the rate of their state’s gasoline excise tax and the subsequent amount they are likely to pay for this tax in a month. Regression analyses show that voter misperceptions concerning the magnitude of state fuel taxes affect their views regarding an increase in funding to support highway investment proposals. A reasonable policy implication is that the adoption of proposals to generate additional funds for highway investment is more likely if accompanied by a campaign identifying the existing rate of the state’s gasoline excise tax and the relatively small amount of this tax paid by the state’s typical driver.

Suggested Citation

  • Ronald C. Fisher & Robert W. Wassmer, 2017. "Does Perception of Gas Tax Paid Influence Support for Funding Highway Improvements?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 45(4), pages 511-537, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:45:y:2017:i:4:p:511-537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://pfr.sagepub.com/content/45/4/511.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Susan Xu Tang & David L. Sjoquist, 2019. "Differential Effects of Federal and State Gasoline Taxes on Gasoline Consumption," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 229(2), pages 11-32, June.
    2. Duncan, Denvil & Li, Danyang & Graham, John D., 2020. "Tax rate design and support for mileage user-fees," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 17-26.
    3. Linda M. Fogg & Lawrence C. Hamilton & Erin S. Bell, 2020. "Views of the Highway: Infrastructure Reality, Perceptions, and Politics," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.

    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:sae:pubfin:v:45:y:2017:i:4:p:511-537. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.