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Burden sharing in deficit countries: a questionnaire-experimental investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Wulf Gaertner

    (University of Osnabrück
    London School of Economics)

  • Lars Schwettmann

    (Helmholtz Zentrum München GmbH
    Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

Abstract

This paper studies the problem of burden sharing in countries that were forced to introduce severe budget cuts after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 which had unleashed a financial crisis in many industrialised countries of the Western world. We do not ask how the burden was actually split in each country examined but how the burden should have been shared among different income groups of society. In order to answer this question, a questionnaire-experimental investigation was run among students from Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Our study offered the students seven different schemes of taxation amongst which we had specified a proportional rule and two progressive schemes of differing severity. A key result within our investigation is the finding that a large majority of students in all countries involved rarely opted for a proportional rule of burden sharing but picked one of the two progressive schemes instead. However, there were differences between countries with respect to the frequencies of these three rules, whereby Greece and Ireland were polar cases. The other rules received only minor support.

Suggested Citation

  • Wulf Gaertner & Lars Schwettmann, 2017. "Burden sharing in deficit countries: a questionnaire-experimental investigation," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 113-144, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:series:v:8:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s13209-016-0151-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s13209-016-0151-8
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    Cited by:

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    2. Wulf Gaertner & Richard Bradley & Yongsheng Xu & Lars Schwettmann, 2019. "Against the proportionality principle: Experimental findings on bargaining over losses," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-18, July.
    3. Benoît Tarroux, 2017. "The value of progressivity: Evidence from survey experiments," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 2017-13, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    4. Alexander W. Cappelen & Roland Iwan Luttens & Erik Ø. Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2019. "Fairness in Bankruptcies: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2832-2841, June.
    5. José-Manuel Giménez-Gómez & M. Carmen Marco-Gil & Juan-Francisco Sánchez-García, 2022. "New empirical insights into conflicting claims problems," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 709-738, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Burden sharing; Proportional rule; Progressive schemes; Questionnaire studies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

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