ABTA,THE CONSUMER AND THE RESTRICTIVE TRADE PRACTICES COURT DECISION

The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) has operated since 1965 a set of restrictive practices known as the stabilizer. Such practices in service industries became illegal in 1976 and the stabilizer agreement which was defended by ABTA came before the Restrictive Practices Court in the Summer of 1982. The Court accepted the argument that the stabilizer was in the interest of consumers in that ABTA rescued and reimbursed holiday-makers when tour firms ceased to operate, and concluded that ABTA should continue its practice of exclusive dealing.     

Credit Card Indebtedness and Psychological Well‐Being Over Time: Empirical Evidence from a Household Survey

While a number of studies have investigated the relationship between debt and psychological well‐being, none so far has explored if and how this relationship evolves over time. We seek to fill this gap in the literature by empirically analyzing the impact of household credit card debt on debt stress. Using cross‐sectional data collected by The Ohio State University's Consumer Finance Monthly survey between August 2008 and December 2010, we construct a debt stress index and categorize households into three groups based on the length of credit card indebtedness. Our empirical results provide statistical evidence of time‐varying impacts of credit card debt on stress levels. Specifically, we find that debt stress for short‐run debtors is more than twice that of long‐run debtors. The results are robust across a range of econometric specifications.     

Managerial Evaluations of the Relevance of Cash vs Accrual-based Financial Reports in the Australian Food Industry

Many authors have argued that a cashflow statement prepared under the direct method is a superior decision-making tool because it avoids perceived measurement and classification pitfalls associated with conventional accrual-accounting procedures. This article investigates comparative decision-usefulness ratings of the cash flow statement, profit-and-loss statement and balance sheet by a sample of accounting managers and executives. The ratings were further compared against firms' management accounting systems. Results suggest that the cashflow statement may be a complementary source of financial information for managers and may enhance the usefulness of information in accrualbased financial reports and management accounting systems.     

The Marginal Cost of Australian Income Taxation*

When the financing of expenditure programmes involves a welfare cost, that cost should be considered part of the opportunity cost of the expenditure programme. In this paper, we explore some concepts of the welfare loss of taxing labour income. We correct some measures previously applied and estimate the marginal cost of Australian public funds. Using our measure of the cost of public funds, we explore the costs of policy options in the motor vehicle industry.