What Drives Support for Higher Public Spending?

Abstract

Year after year, evidence from the Social and Community Planning Research’s annual British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey and elsewhere consistently shows both high levels of public support for increased spending on such front line public services as education and the National Health Service alongside a marked reluctance for individuals to countenance increases in their own tax bills. Using evidence from the 1995 BSA survey, we examine the popularity of seven major spending programmes (health, education, the police, defence, the environment, culture and the arts and public transport), linking any advocated changes in spending explicitly to the resultant changes in tax payments for the respondent’s household.

We are grateful for comments from Timothy Besley, Carl Emmerson, Paul Johnson and Michael Ridge.