@EdWorkingPaper{ai26-1500,
title = "Property Tax Salience and Public Good Investment: Evidence from School Bond Elections",
author = "Blake H. Heller, Melissa Arnold Lyon",
institution = "Annenberg Institute at Brown University",
number = "1500",
year = "2026",
month = "June",
URL = "http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1500",
abstract = {In 2019, Texas passed legislation requiring that the ballot text for all school bond referenda include the phrase “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE,” highlighting property taxes as their primary funding mechanism. Evaluating the impact of this policy change on voter behavior in a difference-in-differences framework, we find that the introduction of property tax disclaimers reduced the passage rate of school bonds by approximately 9 percentage points relative to other municipal bonds, which were unaffected by the policy. The effects are driven by November elections, where less-informed voters may be more influenced by ballot language. Two survey experiments reinforce our finding that property tax disclaimers increase the salience of property taxes, erode support for school bonds, and shift attention away from the benefits of bonds. When bonds are projected to substantially increase property tax obligations, Texas-style property tax disclaimers reduce voter errors, but for bonds with small impacts on property taxes, these disclaimers increase voter errors.},
}