Information, Knowledge, and Attitudes: An Evaluation of the Taxpayer Receipt

Abstract

To better understand the relationship between information and political knowledge, we evaluate an ambitious government initiative: the nationwide dissemination of “taxpayer receipts,” or personalized, itemized accounts of government spending, by the UK government in fall 2014. In coordination with the British tax authorities, we embedded a survey experiment in a nationally representative panel. We find that citizens became more knowledgeable about government spending because of our encouragement to read their receipt. Although baseline levels of political knowledge are indeed low, our findings indicate that individuals are capable of learning and retaining complex political information. However, even as citizens became more knowledgeable, we uncover no evidence that their attitudes toward government and redistribution changed concomitantly. The acquisition and retention of new information does not necessarily change attitudes. Our results have implications for citizens’ capacity to learn and research on the relationship between knowledge and attitudes.