Politicians and Tax Policy: The Role of Preferences and Beliefs

We examine the role of politician preferences and beliefs about tax policy, drawing on a unique survey of more than 700 local government leaders (mayors) in Brazil. Mayors rate raising tax revenue as an important policy priority and express strong beliefs that a range of tax interventions have the potential to improve revenue collection. Mayors are generally confident in their beliefs and often appear overoptimistic relative to existing empirical evidence. Mayoral political preferences as well as beliefs about the effectiveness of tax interventions are predictive of mayors seeking out further knowledge by attending an information session on raising tax revenue.