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Individuals, Institutions, and Public Preferences over Public Finance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John Mark Hansen
John Mark Hansen*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

This study examines public preferences over deficits, taxes, and spending. Using responses to public opinion questions designed for the purpose, the article assesses the state of preferences as expressed by individuals and as represented in government. One section examines the characteristics of individual preferences—their completeness, consistency, and coherence. Public opinion is remarkably well structured and overwhelmingly partial to the policy status quo. A second section explores the properties of mass preferences as they are aggregated by several different kinds of institutional voting rules. Institutions matter, at least to a point: Consistent institutional differences over federal budget policy trace directly to the diverse means by which institutions represent the public's positions. The conclusion assesses the meaning and import of the public's resistance to budget policy change.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 92 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 513 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1998

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