Experimental Design
The experimental design will be applied in an online survey distributed to a representative sample (using simple quotas for four dimensions: age groups, gender, nation (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) in the United Kingdom.
First step:
All respondents are asked questions about their perception of wealth inequality in the United Kingdom and about demographic characteristics (gender, marital status, etc.) and some economic circumstances (their broad own wealth assets, income). They will also answer to some questions about their perception of the government and of taxes in general prior to the treatment.
Second step:
Half of the respondents will be given information about wealth inequality in the United Kingdom (treated group) while the other half will not see that information. [Given the relatively big sample, we expect treatment/non treatment to naturally distribute equally in all broad demographics groups through simple randomisation.]
Third step:
Check information acquisition/bias correction through a second set of questions about wealth inequality posed "post-treatment".
Fourth step:
Investigate differences in wealth taxation preferences between treated and untreated group.
This differences in preferences will be refer to: overall wealth taxation, taxation to different wealth assets, exemption thresholds for taxation, implicit tax rates for wealth taxation, different earmarking of wealth taxation revenue.
Fifth step:
This differences in the effect will be cross-analysed for different subgroups of the population based on socio-demographic differences and on pre-treatment differences in perceptions.