Research designed for real policy choices

Governments often need to reduce subsidies or increase regulated prices, but fear that public opposition will make reform politically or socially unworkable.

Opposition depends on more than the size of a price increase. Phasing reforms in, targeting high-consuming households, providing compensation and clearly explaining the rationale can substantially increase public acceptance.

Governments can test competing reform packages before implementation, identify which groups are most likely to resist, and determine which forms of compensation and communication are most credible.

A tax system can be progressive overall while still treating people with similar incomes very differently. These inequalities may weaken perceptions of fairness and trust in the system.

Employees can pay considerably more tax than self-employed people earning the same income. Citizens across six countries care about this unequal treatment, but the policy solutions they favour cannot always be inferred from their concerns alone.

Combining tax microsimulation with surveys allows governments to assess both the distributional consequences of reform and how citizens understand the trade-offs involved.

Governments frequently try to improve compliance through enforcement or taxpayer communication. These measures may be less effective when people believe the underlying tax system is unfair.

People report greater willingness to pay tax when they learn that taxes and transfers are progressive. Their willingness falls when they learn that the system is less progressive than they had believed.

Tax administrations can consider fairness alongside enforcement — examining how the design of the tax system, and the way its distributional effects are communicated, may affect voluntary compliance.

Fossil fuel subsidies strain public budgets and deliver much of their benefit to better-off households. Yet attempts to remove them have sparked protests and policy reversals, leaving many governments wary of reform.

Only around 30% of people support cutting subsidies when the reform is presented on its own. Support rises above 95% when the savings are used for alternatives people value — public services, cash transfers or tax reductions.

Governments can pair subsidy reform with credible, well-communicated commitments on how the savings will be used, and test in advance which alternatives are most persuasive for their population.

Campaigns often assume that telling people inequality is high — or that they are poorer than they think — will build support for redistributive policy. That assumption is rarely tested.

Informing people that they are poorer than they believed does not increase support for redistribution. But accurate information about wage inequality can shift views — including among far-right voters, whose support for addressing inequality rises.

Which facts move which audiences is an empirical question. Governments and advocates can test information and framing strategies before launching campaigns, rather than relying on intuition about what will persuade.