作者:Sinclair Davidson
Abstract: There is a widespread concern that anti‐elitist or populist opinion is on the rise. The policy concern is that political opportunists would exploit voter rational ignorance for their own cynical purposes. In this article I demonstrate that, in the field of taxation, this sort of behaviour already occurs. Fiscal illusion can be described as deceiving taxpayer‐voters into paying more tax than they would otherwise agree to. Taxpayers are already victims of political opportunism unrelated to the rise of populism.
楼主的注释：投机主义者利用选民的理性无知以达成他们自己的目的。理性无知是指选民要弄清楚某件事需要付出很高的成本去搜集和学习相关的信息，选民去费这个劲还不如随便投出自己认为似乎合理的一票。财政幻觉主要指欺骗选民支持某项财政支出，但选民其实并不知道增加的财政支出会给自己增加多少实际的税负，还以为自己的投票权让世界变得更美好。例如，在很多经济学家反对英国脱欧的时候，支持脱欧的政客们搞了个全民公投来证明脱欧的正确性，然而普通公民对脱欧的认识又有多少呢？
Abstract: There is a widespread concern that anti‐elitist or populist opinion is on the rise. The policy concern is that political opportunists would exploit voter rational ignorance for their own cynical purposes. In this article I demonstrate that, in the field of taxation, this sort of behaviour already occurs. Fiscal illusion can be described as deceiving taxpayer‐voters into paying more tax than they would otherwise agree to. Taxpayers are already victims of political opportunism unrelated to the rise of populism.
楼主的注释：投机主义者利用选民的理性无知以达成他们自己的目的。理性无知是指选民要弄清楚某件事需要付出很高的成本去搜集和学习相关的信息，选民去费这个劲还不如随便投出自己认为似乎合理的一票。财政幻觉主要指欺骗选民支持某项财政支出，但选民其实并不知道增加的财政支出会给自己增加多少实际的税负，还以为自己的投票权让世界变得更美好。例如，在很多经济学家反对英国脱欧的时候，支持脱欧的政客们搞了个全民公投来证明脱欧的正确性，然而普通公民对脱欧的认识又有多少呢？
