A surprising new study reveals that simply explaining what governments actually do can dramatically shift public opinion on taxation. When Americans learned about everyday public goods like highways and sewage systems, support for tax increases jumped by 10 percentage points, a remarkable finding in an era when raising taxes typically triggers fierce opposition.
The research, led by Tomoko Matsumoto from Tokyo University of Science, tackled a puzzle that has confounded policymakers: how to build support for the kind of government expansion that could reduce inequality. The answer, it turns out, might be less about convincing people that inequality is severe and more about reminding them what their tax dollars already accomplish.
In an experiment with roughly 3,000 U.S. citizens, researchers randomly assigned participants to read brief passages about transportation infrastructure and public sanitation. The information was straightforward: here is what these systems cost, here is how efficiently the government maintains them, and here is how they benefit your daily life. Nothing revolutionary, just facts about services most people use without thinking.
The control group, who received no such information, split almost evenly on whether they would accept a one percent tax increase. The informed group told a different story. Nearly 64 percent agreed to pay more.
The Bipartisan Effect Nobody Expected
What makes these results particularly striking is their uniformity. The treatment worked the same way regardless of income level, political ideology, race, or gender. In a politically fractured nation where partisan identity shapes reactions to nearly everything, information about public goods somehow cut through the noise.
“While inequality continues to widen without abating, I hope this provides hints for how we can maintain society while preserving a sense of mutual support,” Matsumoto said.
The researchers had hypothesized that learning about universal public benefits might reduce support for progressive taxation, the idea being that if everyone benefits equally, perhaps everyone should pay equally. That prediction fell flat. Support for tax progressivity barely budged, changing by less than two percentage points. People were willing to pay more, but they were not suddenly convinced the wealthy should pay less.
The findings suggest a mechanism the researchers call reciprocity: when citizens understand they receive valuable services, they become more willing to fund them. This is not altruism or abstract concern about inequality. It is something closer to a transaction, though one wrapped in civic obligation.
Government Size as Redistribution Tool
The study also tested whether informing people about public goods would crowd out support for welfare programs aimed specifically at helping the poor. Here the results were mixed but mostly encouraging for advocates of redistribution. When asked how extra tax revenue should be spent, the informed group was 3.8 percentage points less likely to say it should go exclusively to the poor. However, when asked about maintaining existing welfare programs like food stamps, their views remained unchanged.
The implication: a larger government funded by this newfound support could expand public goods while maintaining progressive spending on poverty relief. Redistribution would happen not by soaking the rich or slashing benefits for the middle class, but by scaling up operations across the board.
“If citizens understand the value of public goods and the government’s role in maintaining them, public opinion about taxation and expenditure can change, potentially reducing inequality,” the researchers wrote.
The experiment was conducted in July 2021 through an online survey. Participants answered comprehension questions to ensure they actually read the information about government services. The study controlled for various demographic factors and used multiple measures to confirm the treatment worked as intended.
One limitation: the sample came from Amazon Mechanical Turk, which skews younger and more educated than the general population. The researchers acknowledge this, though they note that similar experiments have proven generalizable beyond convenience samples. They also caution that their study measured self-reported preferences rather than actual voting behavior, though the two often align when individual stakes are low.
The research arrives at an interesting moment. Infrastructure spending, once broadly popular, has become surprisingly partisan. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which allocated $1.2 trillion for transportation and road projects, faced fierce opposition despite addressing the kinds of needs highlighted in this study. Whether these findings would replicate in today’s more polarized environment remains an open question.
Still, the core insight holds potential: people support what they understand. And if understanding breeds support, the path to reducing inequality might run through better communication about what governments already do, not just arguments about what they should do differently.
The Japanese Economic Review: 10.1007/s42973-025-00228-2
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