Three studies of attitudes toward tax policies were conducted on the World Wide Web. The results show several effects. In penalty aversion, subjects preferred bonuses over penalties, when policies differ only in how they are formally described. In the Schelling effect, subjects prefer both...

Three experiments carried out on the World Wide Web assessed the consistency of attitudes toward various tax regimes that differed in their overall levels and degrees of tax rate graduation in the presence of framing manipulations. The regimes had two components: an income and a payroll tax. One...

Welfare economics suggests that the tax system is the appropriate place to effect redistribution from those with more command over material resources to those with less - that is, in short, to serve "equity." Society should set other mechanisms of private and public law, including public finance...

The strategy of "starving the beast" involves cutting taxes today with the expectation that spending cuts will follow tomorrow. Various heuristics and biases help to explain the likely effects of the strategy. In four experiments conducted on the World Wide Web, subjects chose general levels of...

Behavioral economics and cognitive psychology have demonstrated that people deviate from ideal precepts of rationality in many settings, showing inconsistent judgment in the face of framing and other formal manipulations of the presentation of problems. This article summarizes the finding of...