Findings · Decisions

When do fiscal concerns change portfolios or votes?

Concern is widespread, but it is usually one input among many. The survey separates reported past decisions from the causal effect of fiscal information on stated future intentions.

Working paper · August 2026

See survey design

Reported past decisions

Debt concern usually stops short of a portfolio adjustment or decisive vote.

Among 955 investors reporting some concern, 29.5% describe monitoring or greater caution and 28.0% describe a concrete adjustment. Among 964 concerned voters, 8.8% say debt concern was decisive for a past vote, while 66.6% say it was at least one factor.

Source and limitation: investor answers are coded open text; voter answers use a closed-response item. The two distributions describe different decisions and should not be compared as a common scale.

Interactive · Reported past decisions

How debt concern enters portfolio and voting decisions

Choose a response. Select Concrete portfolio adjustment to see the six reported adjustment types.

Among those with some concernN = 955matched open-text accounts

Selected responseConcrete portfolio adjustment

Share of concerned investors28.0%

These respondents described a past reallocation. The channels below show the directions they mentioned.

Among investors reporting a concrete adjustment

Cut or avoid Treasuries, or shorten duration36%

Foreign or non-dollar assets21%

Equities or real estate19%

Cash or certificates of deposit17%

Inflation hedges12%

Invest less or reduce risk10%

Categories overlap because one response can describe several changes. Percentages do not sum to 100.

Bond investors who reported some concern: N = 955 matched open-text accounts. Registered voters who reported some concern: N = 964. Investor categories describe reported past behavior, not portfolio quantities; voter categories come from a closed-response item. The two measures are not on the same scale.

Randomized information treatment

Debt-to-GDP information significantly raises perceived ten-year debt-crisis risk.

Showing bond investors current debt/GDP and the CBO long-run trajectory raises stated ten-year crisis probability by 14.9 percentage points. The estimated effect on plans to reduce Treasury holdings is 4.2 points, with a confidence interval that includes zero.

Source and limitation: randomized bond-investor experiment, N = 985. Both outcomes are stated responses; planned holdings need not equal realized trades.

Randomized evidence · Debt trajectory

Debt-to-GDP information significantly raises perceived ten-year debt-crisis risk

Select an outcome to see its estimate and 95% confidence interval.

Selected outcomeTen-year crisis probability

Estimated effect14.9 pp

The 95% confidence interval is 9.5 to 20.2 percentage points.

Bond-investor experiment, N = 985. Estimates compare the debt-trajectory information group with control and include the paper’s pre-treatment controls and collection-wave fixed effects. Intended holdings refer to plans over the next 12 months.

Next topic

How do expected fiscal paths compare with outcomes?

Explore fiscal expectations

Paper authorsRicardo Delao and Wenhao Li