Decomposing demand for public expenditure in Ireland

Abstract

This article, via the analysis of stated preferences from a nationwide representative survey of 1149 adults, examines the determinants of preferences for overall government expenditure and estimates a Seemingly Unrelated Regression model of demand for the three major categories of public expenditures in Ireland, namely, social welfare, education and health. Those on higher incomes are less in favour of government expenditure overall. However and consistent with the available evidence on the utilization and financing of the three main categories of government expenditures, decomposing the preferences demonstrates that those on higher incomes are particularly less in favour of social welfare expenditure but more in favour of spending on health and education.