IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v21y1993i3p305-321.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fiscal Illusion and the Output Expansion Hypothesis

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey K. Turnbull

    (Louisiana State University)

Abstract

In the traditional certainty model of voter fiscal illusion, voters misperceive non-stochastic tax prices as being lower than they actually are and therefore allow public sector officials to expand output beyond the perfect information output. This article shows how modeling fiscal illusion as imperfect voter information or uncertainty introduces an additional risk term that offsets the certainty model illusion-output expansion effect. The fiscal illusion-output expansion hypothesis is evaluated by empirically examining the impact of fiscal structure complexity, both with respect to sources and uses of revenues, on public expenditure demand. In keeping with the uncertainty model of fiscal illusion, the data reveal little support for the illusion-output expansion hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey K. Turnbull, 1993. "Fiscal Illusion and the Output Expansion Hypothesis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 21(3), pages 305-321, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:21:y:1993:i:3:p:305-321
    DOI: 10.1177/109114219302100304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114219302100304
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114219302100304?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leekley, Robert M, 1980. "Multiple Outputs and Community Choice in Public Education," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(3), pages 333-352, July.
    2. Vincent Munley & Kenneth Greene, 1978. "Fiscal illusion, the nature of public goods and equation specification," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 95-100, March.
    3. Winer, Stanley L, 1983. "Some Evidence on the Effect of the Separation of Spending and Taxing Decisions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 126-140, February.
    4. Richard Wagner, 1976. "Revenue structure, fiscal illusion, and budgetary choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 45-61, March.
    5. Dardanoni, Valentino, 1988. "Optimal Choices under Uncertainty: The Case of Two-Argument Utility Functions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(391), pages 429-450, June.
    6. Clotfelter, Charles T, 1976. "Public Spending for Higher Education: An Empirical Test of Two Hypotheses," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 31(2), pages 177-195.
    7. Davis, George K, 1989. "Income and Substitution Effects for Mean-Preserving Spreads," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(1), pages 131-136, February.
    8. Logan, Robert R, 1986. "Fiscal Illusion and the Grantor Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(6), pages 1304-1318, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Valeria De Bonis & Christian Thimann, 1999. "Expansionary Effects of Fiscal Consolidation: The Role of Expectations and Interest Rates In the Case of Denmark," Public Finance Review, , vol. 27(6), pages 624-647, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Turnbull, Geoffrey K., 1998. "The Overspending and Flypaper Effects of Fiscal Illusion: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-26, July.
    2. Hammed Amusa & Robert Mabunda & Ramos Mabugu, 2008. "Fiscal Illusion At The Local Sphere: An Empirical Test Of The Flypaper Effect Using South African Municipal Data1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(3), pages 443-465, September.
    3. Brian Dollery & Andrew Worthington, 1999. "Fiscal Illusion at the Local Level: An Empirical Test Using Australian Municipal Data," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 75(1), pages 37-48, March.
    4. Michael A. Nelson, 1986. "Voter Perceptions of the Cost of Government: the Case of Local School Expenditures in Louisiana," Public Finance Review, , vol. 14(1), pages 48-68, January.
    5. Roberto Dell'Anno & Morena De Stefano, 2014. "Un indicatore sintetico dell?Illusione Finanziaria. Un tentativo di stima per l?Italia," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(1), pages 65-92.
    6. Boris Begović & Tanasije Marinković & Marko Paunović, 2017. "A Case For Introduction Of Numerical Fiscal Rules In Serbian Constitution," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 62(212), pages 7-42, January -.
    7. Walter Misiolek & Harold Elder, 1988. "Tax structure and the size of government: An empirical analysis of the fiscal illusion and fiscal stress arguments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 233-245, June.
    8. David L. Sjoquist & Mary Beth Walker & Sally Wallace, 2005. "Estimating Differential Responses to Local Fiscal Conditions: A Mixture Model Analysis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 33(1), pages 36-61, January.
    9. Facchini, Francois, 2014. "The determinants of public spending: a survey in a methodological perspective," MPRA Paper 53006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Robert Logan & J. O'Brien, 1989. "Fiscal illusion, budget maximizers, and dynamic equilibrium," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 221-235, December.
    11. Sergey Sinelnikov & Pavel Kadochnikov & Ilya Trunin & Sergey Chetverikov & Marianne Vigneault, 2006. "Fiscal Federalism in Russia: Soft Budget Constraints of Regional Governments," Published Papers 47, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2012.
    12. Friedrich Schneider, 2000. "The Increase of the size of the shadow economy of 18 OECD countries: Some preliminary explanations," Economics working papers 2000-08, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    13. Broll, Udo & Mallick, Rajiv & Wong, Kit Pong, 2001. "International trade and hedging in economies in transition," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 149-159, June.
    14. Worthington, Andrew C & Dollery, Brian E, 1998. "The Political Determination of Intergovernmental Grants in Australia," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(3-4), pages 299-315, March.
    15. Roberto Dell’Anno & Brian Dollery, 2014. "Comparative fiscal illusion: a fiscal illusion index for the European Union," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 937-960, May.
    16. Roberto Dell'Anno & Vincenzo Maria De Rosa, 2013. "The Relevance of the Theory of Fiscal Illusion. The Case of the Italian Tax System," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(2), pages 63-92.
    17. Menezes, Carmen F. & Henry Wang, X. & Bigelow, John P., 2005. "Duality and consumption decisions under income and price risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 387-405, April.
    18. Claudio Bonilla & Marcos Vergara, 2022. "New results on precautionary saving and nonlinear risks," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 177-189, July.
    19. Bev Dahlby, 2011. "The marginal cost of public funds and the flypaper effect," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(3), pages 304-321, June.
    20. Vaughan Dickson & Weiqiu Yu, 2000. "Revenue Structures, The Perceived Price of Government Output, and Public Expenditures," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(1), pages 48-65, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:21:y:1993:i:3:p:305-321. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.