Political Intentions, Taxation, & Demand for Accountability

What determines demand for government accountability following the disclosure of political misconduct? Existing literature suggests that political intentions and taxation may both play a role, but direct evidence is scarce. We test these theories using an online survey experiment administered in the United States in which subjects were randomly assigned to one of five informational treatments describing the corrupt or incompetent use of income tax or oil revenue. We find that intentions matter a great deal; holding losses constant, corruption leads to greater demand for accountability than incompetence. Among high-income earners, the corrupt misuse of income-tax revenue generally leads to more demand for accountability than that of oil-tax revenue. Considered jointly, our results help to explain patterns of civic engagement in the United States and offer implications for the optimal structure of public finance