Citizens’ perceptions on public finance literacy: Familiarity, importance, actual use and proposed learning objectives

Abstract

Recent literature highlights the importance of providing citizens public sector accounting education to help them become public finance literate. This study performs a questionnaire-based survey to a convenient sample of citizens to collect their perspective on the topic. The results indicate an average familiarity of the respondents with key public finance concepts, with male respondents appearing more familiar. The respondents place more importance in being able to monitor and assess the state’s financial performance and condition rather than that of the local government. In practice, when making voting decisions during municipal elections they focus less on financial information, compared to when it comes to state elections, mainly due to difficulties in accessing the municipalities’ financial information. The respondents are further supportive of receiving public sector accounting education as they believe it could help them monitor the local and state government’s financial condition and performance, take more rational election decisions and more actively participate to public matters. They perceive that such an education should take place from high-school and not earlier, and they find useful this educational process to continue via online and on-site seminars. Finally, they make recommendations on the specific content (learning objectives) of public sector accounting education at the different educational levels (school, high-school, municipal seminars, and online seminars).