Asymmetric Linkages in Fiscal Trilemma Preferences

We theorise that there is an asymmetric linkage in the public mind between borrowing and public spending, on the one hand, and borrowing and taxation, on the other. This experiment is designed to test the hypothesis that under conditions of high-salience government borrowing, not only do the public become less averse to the prospect of spending cuts in order to reduce borrowing, but also that they become more fiscally conservative on the question of taxation versus spending, preferring spending cuts to tax increases even in an explicitly balanced budget scenario.