A widespread view in the ‘political budget cycles’ literature is that incumbent politicians seek to influence voters’ perceptions of their competence and/or preferences by using the composition of the fiscal budget as a signalling tool. However, little is known about whether voters actually receive and perceive the signal in that way. To empirically assess the relevance of the signalling channel at the municipal level, we conducted a survey among 2000 representative German citizens in 2018. Only a small fraction of voters feel well-informed about the fiscal budget signal and use the information it contains to decide whether to vote for the incumbent politician. Persons paying more attention to the signal sent by local politicians live in smaller municipalities, are more satisfied with their economic situation, are more educated, and do not feel that they are being electorally manipulated. Our analysis raises doubt about the relevance of budget composition as a signalling mechanism for voters at the local level.

“政治预算周期”文献中的一个普遍观点是，现任政治家试图通过使用财政预算的构成作为信号工具来影响选民对其能力和/或偏好的看法。然而，人们对选民是否真的以这种方式接收和感知信号知之甚少。为了实证评估市政层面信号渠道的相关性，我们在 2018 年对 2000 名具有代表性的德国公民进行了调查。只有一小部分选民对财政预算信号有充分的了解，并使用其中包含的信息来决定是否投票给现任政治家。更关注当地政客发出的信号的人居住在较小的城市，对自己的经济状况更满意，受教育程度更高，并且不要觉得他们正在被选举操纵。我们的分析对预算构成作为地方一级选民的信号机制的相关性提出了质疑。