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Field
Abstract
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Before
This project studies how individuals perceive debt-financed government spending and the factors shaping their support for it. We address three main questions: (i) What considerations and concerns do people raise when thinking about debt-financed spending? (ii) How do these concerns affect policy preferences? (iii) Are attitudes perspective-dependent, i.e. shaped by salient roles such as taxpayer or beneficiary of public goods?
To answer these questions, we conduct two large-scale online surveys with representative samples from Germany. In the first survey (N=4,000), we dedicate 1,000 respondents to elicit first-order concerns through open-ended questions about arguments for or against debt-financed government spending, followed by questions on policy preferences and voting relevance. This allows us to link salient concerns to stated support for debt-financed government spending.
In a follow-up survey (N=7,500), we establish causality by randomly exposing respondents to specific concerns, while respondents in the control group receive no information. We build directly on the insights from the first survey, as the treatments reflect the most salient concerns identified through respondents’ answers to the open-ended question about debt-financed government spending. We then measure all respondents’ attitudes towards debt-financed government spending, including behavioral measures, to identify whether exposure to specific concerns affects people’s policy stance.
Finally, in an experiment embedded within the first survey, we examine the perspective dependence of support for debt-financed government spending based on the remaining 3,000 respondents. A random subset of 2,000 respondents is primed to consider either the public goods they benefit from or the taxes they bear, using open-ended survey questions, while 1,000 respondents form a pure control group that does not answer any open-ended question. We then measure all respondents’ attitudes towards debt-financed government spending to examine the role of taxpayer and consumer perspectives.
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After
This project studies how individuals perceive debt-financed government spending and the factors shaping their support for it. We address three main questions: (i) What considerations and concerns do people raise when thinking about debt-financed spending? (ii) How do these concerns affect policy preferences? (iii) Are attitudes perspective-dependent, i.e. shaped by salient roles such as taxpayer or beneficiary of public goods?
To answer these questions, we conduct two large-scale online surveys with representative samples from Germany. In the first survey (N=4,000), we dedicate 1,000 respondents to elicit first-order concerns through open-ended questions about arguments for or against debt-financed government spending, followed by questions on policy preferences and voting relevance. This allows us to link salient concerns to stated support for debt-financed government spending.
In a follow-up survey (N=7,500), we establish causality by randomly exposing respondents to specific concerns, while respondents in the control group receive no information. We build directly on the insights from the first survey, as the treatments reflect the most salient concerns identified through respondents’ answers to the open-ended question about debt-financed government spending. We then measure all respondents’ attitudes towards debt-financed government spending, including behavioral measures, to identify whether exposure to specific concerns affects people’s policy stance.
In a third survey (N=5,000), we analyze whether the salience of a given argument for or against debt-financed government spending affects how people perceive and respond to new statistical information. We explore this based on an additional experiment in which respondents are randomly exposed to specific concerns about debt-financed government spending (identical to the experiment in the second survey), while the control group receives a placebo-treatment. Afterwards, respondents are randomly assigned to two different information treatments that provide them with different projections for the development of Germany’s debt-to-GDP ratio over the next ten years. We then measure all respondents’ trust in the provided information (i.e. the projected development of Germany’s debt-to-GDP ratio), attitudes towards debt-financed government spending, including behavioral measures, and ask them to provide their own estimate of Germany’s debt-to-GDP ratio in ten years.
Finally, in an experiment embedded within the first survey, we examine the perspective dependence of support for debt-financed government spending based on the remaining 3,000 respondents. A random subset of 2,000 respondents is primed to consider either the public goods they benefit from or the taxes they bear, using open-ended survey questions, while 1,000 respondents form a pure control group that does not answer any open-ended question. We then measure all respondents’ attitudes towards debt-financed government spending to examine the role of taxpayer and consumer perspectives.
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Trial End Date
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Before
March 13, 2026
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After
August 31, 2026
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Last Published
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Before
February 27, 2026 07:19 AM
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After
August 14, 2026 07:55 AM
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Intervention End Date
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Before
March 13, 2026
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After
August 31, 2026
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
- Approval of debt-financed government spending (Survey 1 & Survey 2)
- Approval of debt-financed public investments (Survey 1 & Survey 2)
- Approval of debt-financed public consumption expenditures (Survey 1 & Survey 2)
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After
- Approval of debt-financed government spending (Survey 1, Survey 2, Survey 3)
- Approval of debt-financed public investments (Survey 1, Survey 2, Survey 3)
- Approval of debt-financed public consumption expenditures (Survey 1, Survey 2, Survey 3)
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
Survey 1 (N=4,000):
The first survey is conducted on a representative sample of 4,000 German adults and consists of two components.
1. Elicitation of first-order concerns (N=1,000):
A randomly selected subsample of 1,000 respondents does not participate in any experiment. Instead, they answer an open-ended question asking what arguments, in their view, speak for or against allowing the state to incur additional debt to finance public expenditure. They then report their policy preferences regarding debt-financed spending and the importance of the topic for their voting behavior. We use text analysis to identify the most prevalent concerns, which subsequently inform the treatments in Survey 2.
2. Perspective-priming experiment (N=3,000):
The remaining 3,000 respondents are randomly assigned to one of three groups (1,000 each): taxpayer priming, public goods priming, or pure control group. Treated respondents are asked to answer an open-ended question designed to make a specific perspective salient. In the taxpayer priming treatment, respondents describe taxes they personally find burdensome; in the public goods priming treatment, they describe public goods from which they personally benefit. The control group receives no such question. We encourage respondents to elaborate at length to increase salience. Afterwards, all groups answer the same set of questions about their preferences towards debt-financed government spending and its importance for their voting behavior.
Survey 2 (N=7,500):
The second survey is conducted on a representative sample of 7,500 German adults. Respondents are randomly assigned to six different treatment groups and one control group (roughly 1,070 each). Each treatment group receives a brief information treatment presenting one of the most prevalent concerns about debt-financed government spending, as identified from the open-ended question on first-order concerns in Survey 1. Specifically, the six treatments discuss narratives concerning public investment needs, the state's capacity to act during crisis, economic growth effects, borrowing costs, intergenerational fairness, and governance issues. The control group receives no information.
Afterwards, all respondents answer the same questions as in Survey 1 regarding policy preferences and voting relevance. We include two additional outcome measures: (i) willingness to sign a petition for or against debt-financed spending, and (ii) an open-ended question about the main consideration that comes to mind when thinking about debt-financed government spending.
Survey start and end dates:
Survey 1 start date: 2025-10-02
Survey 1 end date: 2025-11-02
Survey 2 start date: 2026-02-18
Survey 2 end date: 2026-03-13
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After
Survey 1 (N=4,000):
The first survey is conducted on a representative sample of 4,000 German adults and consists of two components.
1. Elicitation of first-order concerns (N=1,000):
A randomly selected subsample of 1,000 respondents does not participate in any experiment. Instead, they answer an open-ended question asking what arguments, in their view, speak for or against allowing the state to incur additional debt to finance public expenditure. They then report their policy preferences regarding debt-financed spending and the importance of the topic for their voting behavior. We use text analysis to identify the most prevalent concerns, which subsequently inform the treatments in Survey 2.
2. Perspective-priming experiment (N=3,000):
The remaining 3,000 respondents are randomly assigned to one of three groups (1,000 each): taxpayer priming, public goods priming, or pure control group. Treated respondents are asked to answer an open-ended question designed to make a specific perspective salient. In the taxpayer priming treatment, respondents describe taxes they personally find burdensome; in the public goods priming treatment, they describe public goods from which they personally benefit. The control group receives no such question. We encourage respondents to elaborate at length to increase salience. Afterwards, all groups answer the same set of questions about their preferences towards debt-financed government spending and its importance for their voting behavior.
Survey 2 (N=7,500):
The second survey is conducted on a representative sample of 7,500 German adults. Respondents are randomly assigned to six different treatment groups and one control group (roughly 1,070 each). Each treatment group receives a brief information treatment presenting one of the most prevalent concerns about debt-financed government spending, as identified from the open-ended question on first-order concerns in Survey 1. Specifically, the six treatments discuss narratives concerning public investment needs, the state's capacity to act during crisis, economic growth effects, borrowing costs, intergenerational fairness, and governance issues. The control group receives no information.
Afterwards, all respondents answer the same questions as in Survey 1 regarding policy preferences and voting relevance. We include two additional outcome measures: (i) willingness to sign a petition for or against debt-financed spending, and (ii) an open-ended question about the main consideration that comes to mind when thinking about debt-financed government spending, and (iii) a structured question measuring respondents’ agreement with specific arguments for debt-financed government spending.
Survey 3 (N=5,000):
The third survey is conducted on a representative sample of 5,000 German adults. The survey contains a two-stage experiment. First, respondents are randomly assigned to four different treatment groups and one control group (roughly 1,000 each). Each treatment group receives a brief information treatment presenting one of the most prevalent concerns about debt-financed government spending, as identified from the open-ended question on first-order concerns in Survey 1. These four treatments are an identical, selected subset of the information treatments in Survey 2. Specifically, the four treatments discuss narratives concerning public investment needs, economic growth effects, borrowing costs, and intergenerational fairness. The active control group receives placebo treatment with a generic text on the debate about debt-financed government spending.
Second, respondents from all treatment and control groups are randomly assigned to two different information treatments (roughly 2,500 each). The treatments provide information about the projected development of Germany’s debt-to-GDP ratio over the next ten years, with respondents randomly receiving either a relatively moderate projection of an increase from 65% to 73% or a larger increase from 65% to 86%. Both information treatments contain a graphical illustration of this projection.
Afterwards, all respondents are asked to state the perceived plausibility of the debt projection from the previous information treatment and then answer the same questions as in Survey 1 and 2 regarding policy preferences and voting relevance, as well as the additional outcome measures from Survey 2: (i) willingness to sign a petition for or against debt-financed spending, and (ii) an open-ended question about the main consideration that comes to mind when thinking about debt-financed government spending, and (iii) a structured question measuring respondents’ agreement with specific arguments for debt-financed government spending. Additionally, in Survey 3 respondents are asked to provide their own estimate of Germany’s debt-to-GDP ratio in ten years.
Survey start and end dates:
Survey 1 start date: 2025-10-02
Survey 1 end date: 2025-11-02
Survey 2 start date: 2026-02-18
Survey 2 end date: 2026-03-13
Survey 3 start date: 2026-08-12
Survey 3 end date: 2026-08-31 (approximately)
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Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
Survey 1: 4,000 individuals
Survey 2: 7,500 individuals
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After
Survey 1: 4,000 individuals
Survey 2: 7,500 individuals
Survey 3: 5,000 individuals
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Planned Number of Observations
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Before
Survey 1: 4,000 individuals
Survey 2: 7,500 individuals
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After
Survey 1: 4,000 individuals
Survey 2: 7,500 individuals
Survey 3: 5,000 individuals
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Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
Survey 1: Approximately 4,000 individuals, with around 1,000 individuals in each treatment and control group
Survey 2: Approximately 7,500 individuals, with around 1,070 individuals in each treatment and control group
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After
Survey 1: Approximately 4,000 individuals, with around 1,000 individuals in each treatment and control group
Survey 2: Approximately 7,500 individuals, with around 1,070 individuals in each treatment and control group
Survey 3: Approximately 5,000 individuals, with around 1,000 individuals in each treatment and control group
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
- Importance of party position on debt-financed government spending for voting in federal election (Survey 1 & Survey 2)
- Willingness to sign petition in favor of or against debt-financed government spending (Survey 2 only)
- Main consideration mentioned regarding debt-financed government spending (Survey 2 only)
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After
- Importance of party position on debt-financed government spending for voting in federal election (Survey 1, Survey 2, Survey 3)
- Concern about the level of public debt in Germany (Survey 1, Survey 2, Survey 3)
- Willingness to sign petition in favor of or against debt-financed government spending (Survey 2 & Survey 3)
- Main consideration mentioned regarding debt-financed government spending in an open-ended question (Survey 2 & Survey 3)
- Agreement with specific arguments for and against debt-financed government spending in a structured question (Survey 2 & Survey 3)
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