Has Covid vaccination success increased the marginal willingness to pay taxes? [WP]

Abstract

The Covid-19 vaccination campaign can be regarded as a public-sector success story. Given the shock caused by the pandemic, the visible and successful response of the public authorities regarding vaccination might have elicited an increase in the public’s trust. We test whether the vaccination process has increased the marginal willingness to pay taxes (MWTP). Taking advantage of the different paths of vaccination in Spain, we pursue a difference-in-difference empirical strategy, complemented by an event study, to infer causality running from vaccination to MWTP. We find an increase in MWTP caused by the good governance related to vaccination.