These treatments lowered “don’t know” answers among low-wealth individuals and also affected support for inheritance taxation. Information that higher inheritance taxation could lead to lower income taxes or better public goods provisions increased support for the tax 10/n

First, we test the effect of statistical information about house prices. We find no effect of our treatments, suggesting that factual information about wealth inequality does address the root cause of why some respondents are unable to formulate views on inheritance taxation 8/n

It helps explain why governments, despite high and rising levels of wealth inequality, have not done more to alleviate it: Public opinion is disproportionately driven by informed and mobilized families of homeowners, who support low inheritance taxes 6/n

Whereas about only 2 in 5 low-wealth individuals expressed an opinion in our surverys, about 19 of 20 high-wealth individuals did. AND not only were respondents of high wealth more likely to express an opinion, they also supported lower inheritance taxes 4/n

A core reason governments are reluctant to counteract wealth inequality through inheritance taxation, we argue, is that many people have never thought much about their views of the tax. In our surveys of the UK, about 40% answered “don’t know” to our questions about it 2/n