Progressivity of the Commonwealth Personal Income Tax, 1917–1997

This article assesses changes in personal income tax progressivity since 1916–17. Before World War II, legislative action changed tax progressivity; after, declines mainly reflected tax policy inertia.     

Editorial

Editorial Introduction

Editorial     

The Effect of Gasoline Taxes and Public Transit Investments on Driving Patterns

This paper analyzes how driving patterns are affected by gasoline taxes and the availability of a substitute for driving—public transportation. We develop a measure of transportation substitutability based on the difference between individuals’ predicted commute times by private and public transit, conditional upon their demographic characteristics and geographic location. Improved substitutability decreases annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by inducing modal shifts to public transit, though gasoline taxes are found to have a much larger impact on VMT. Our results imply that a policy that raises gasoline taxes and recycles the revenues into public transit improvements can have even larger impacts on driving patterns than either policy alone.     

When punishment fails: Research on sanctions, intentions and non-cooperation

People can become less cooperative when threatened with sanctions, and previous research suggests both “intentions” and incentives underlie this effect. We report data from an experiment aimed at determining the relative importance of intentions and incentives in producing non-cooperative behavior. Participants play a one-shot investment experiment in pairs. Investors send an amount to trustees, request a return on this investment and, in some treatments, can threaten sanctions to enforce their requests. Decisions by trustees facing threats imposed (or not) by investors are compared to decisions by trustees facing threats imposed (or not) by nature. When not threatened, trustees typically decide to return a positive amount less than the investor requested. When threatened this decision becomes least common. If the request is large relative to the sanction then most trustees return nothing. If the request is small, trustees typically return the requested amount. These results do not vary with investors' intentions.     

The Future European Labor Supply: The Critical Role of the Family

The European employment strategy initiated in 1997 is critically dependent upon the further integration of women into the labor market. The European Union has set a specific target employment rate for women of 60 percent by 2010 and is also committed to providing more and better child care facilities. This gender focus is reinforced by the requirement for gender mainstreaming in all aspects of European employment policy. There is an implied Europe-wide, universal policy of encouraging female labor-market participation and reducing the care work performed by domestic labor. However, the European Commission continues to have limited competence in areas of family, social, and welfare policy. As a result, these common employment objectives for women are thus being pursued against a background of quite different systems of social, family, welfare, and indeed labor-market organization. These systems have different economic and employment implications, such that the outcomes of the common European employment strategy will also be highly variable.     

美国预算和财政管理改革的演进及对中国的启示

一直以来,美国公共预算和财政管理的改革都是务实的、政治的、演进的,有时也不乏创新性。通过对美国公共预算和财政管理改革的历史进行回顾,可以得出一个理解公共预算和财政管理改革的理论框架,这将有助于理解美国现行预算和财政制度体系。这些改革经验对于包括中国在内的世界各国均具有一定的启示和借鉴意义。     

Requests for zoo visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour: How many is too many?

Recognising the potential conservation impact, zoos regularly ask their visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour. This paper presents the results of two studies undertaken to address the question: how often during a visit should visitors be asked? Study 1 sought to a) determine individuals' personal thresholds and b) the point where the number of different behaviours requested began affect visitors' experiences. Study 2 sought the same, but focused on requests for the same behaviour. Results suggest that few respondents' personal thresholds were crossed (2.5% in Study 1 and 9% in Study 2). In neither study did many respondents (2.5% in Study 1 and 2.8% in Study 2) feel that the number of requests negatively affect their overall zoo experience. While there are caveats, we conclude that there appears little cause for concern about asking zoo visitors on multiple occasions to act in support of wildlife. Indeed, such requests may improve experiences.