Estimation of income tax revenue and incidence

This bulletin presents and evaluates a particular method of estimating the yields and incidence of various possible types of income tax. The method is one of dividing the population into income brackets and estimating the number of people and average tax in each bracket. The basic data are the income distributions of families and single individuals in 1935-36 published in Consumer Incomes in the United States by the National Resources Committee and the Internal Revenue Bureau\u27s Statistics of Income for various years. It is necessary to combine data from these two sources since Statistics of Income presents information for higher income brackets only while the National Resources Committee\u27s definition of income does not exactly correspond to the income on which a person is taxed. To make estimates using National Resources Committee data it is necessary to adjust the data for (1) the increase in population since the data were compiled, (2) the increase in national income, (3) the tendency of some persons to understate their incomes in filing tax returns, (4) the inclusion of home-grown food and occupancy of owned houses in NRC estimates, and (5) deductions and exemptions to which the taxpapers are entitled

The Coast: Where Energy Meets the Environment

This Article analyzes mechanisms for handling consequences of the coastal dependent energy programs. Its focus is the United States Department of the Interior plan for increased oil and gas production on the outer continental shelf. Of the four coastal dependent programs, this one has progressed furthest in the implementation process. Deepwater ports are considered in connection with the Deepwater Port Act of 1974, the first federal legislation which explicitly attempts to account for national, regional, state, local, and environmental interests in energy development decision making. Because the number of liquefied natural gas terminals proposed is small and the plans for floating nuclear plants are preliminary, no specific consideration is given their coastal impacts. As these programs mature, the lessons learned from outer continental shelf development will certainly be relevant

The Measurement of Medicaid Coverage in the SIPP: Evidence from California, 1990-1996

This paper studies the accuracy of reported Medicaid coverage in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) using a unique data set formed by matching SIPP survey responses to administrative records from the State of California. Overall, we estimate that the SIPP underestimates Medicaid coverage in the California population by about 10 percent. Among SIPP respondents who can be matched to administrative records, we estimate that the probability someone reports Medicaid coverage in a month when they are actually covered is around 85 percent. The corresponding probability for low-income children is even higher - at least 90 percent. These estimates suggest that the SIPP provides reasonably accurate coverage reports for those who are actually in the Medicaid system. On the other hand, our estimate of the false positive rate (the rate of reported coverage for those who are not covered in the administrative records) is relatively high: 2.5 percent for the sample as a whole, and up to 20 percent for poor children. Some of this is due to errors in the recording of Social Security numbers in the administrative system, rather than to problems in the SIPP.

CZM in California, Oregon, and Washington

Twenty years ago coastal zone protection was merely a gleam in the eyes of a few west coast visionaries. A flurry of state and federal laws in the late 1960s and into the 1970s changed this. Today, broad coastal management programs are in place in all three west coast states, with a special one for San Francisco Bay. Each program is unique, and at the same time shares significant qualities with the others. This article identifies the major attributes of these four programs and offers insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each. In comparing and contrasting the four programs, this article focuses on five topics. Four topics emphasize the process of coastal zone management: public participation, state and local government relationships, enforcement of program requirements, and federal consistency with approved state programs. The remaining topic stresses substantive changes in patterns of coastal resource use. These five topics were selected in order to distinguish broad aspects of coastal zone management from regulatory programs. These topics also were chosen because of the opportunities they offer for interstate comparison. All three states, for example, have delegated substantial planning and implementation to coastal local governments. Such delegation has created significant program monitoring and enforcement problems. Similarly, all four evaluated programs utilize water dependency as a principal shoreline allocation criterion. The inclusion of water dependency also allows some preliminary attempts to link program processes with concrete program outcomes. For all five topics, the legal framework governing each program is outlined and the experiences of administering the program assessed. Statutes, agency regulations, and court decisions combine to form the relevant legal framework and provide the essentials for how coastal zone management was designed to operate. Of course, the legal framework has been modified as experience in administration dictated. Thus, the article also considers how particular problems actually have been dealt with in the regulatory and planning process. Such an experiential view is, by its very nature, difficult to portray because opinion and anecdote are, by necessity, key elements

Visual and refractive outcome of one-site phacotrabeculectomy compared with temporal approach phacoemulsification

Background We aimed to compare visual and refractive outcome following phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implant (IOL) and combined one-site phacotrabeculectomy. Method We performed a retrospective study of case records of patients who had temporal incision phacoemulsification with IOL or one-site phacotrabeculectomy, between June 1997 and June 2001. The patients were matched for age group, operating list and IOL type. All patients were operated on under local anesthesia by the same surgeon. Each arm of the study had 90 patients, age range 60 to 75 years. We collected pre- and postoperative visual acuity, pre- and postoperative refraction within six months after surgery, and intended refraction. The intraocular pressure control was not recorded, as it was not the aim of our study. Results In the phacotrabeculectomy group, 76.6% of patients achieved aimed spherical equivalent, 15.5% of patients had against-the-rule (ATR) astigmatism induced by the surgery, and 90% of the patients had best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) more than 6/12. In the temporal incision phacoemulsification group, 81.1% of patients achieved aimed spherical equivalent, 10% of the patients had induced ATR by the surgery and 95.55% of patients achieved BCVA more than 6/12. Conclusion In this study the visual outcome of the phacotrabeculectomy group did not differ significantly from the visual outcome of temporal approach phacoemulsification

Calibration of centre-of-mass energies at LEP 2 for a precise measurement of the W boson mass

The determination of the centre-of-mass energies for all LEP 2 running is presented. Accurate knowledge of these energies is of primary importance to set the absolute energy scale for the measurement of the W boson mass. The beam energy between 80 and 104 GeV is derived from continuous measurements of the magnetic bending field by 16 NMR probes situated in a number of the LEP dipoles. The relationship between the fields measured by the probes and the beam energy is defined in the NMR model, which is calibrated against precise measurements of the average beam energy between 41 and 61 GeV made using the resonant depolarisation technique. The validity of the NMR model is verified by three independent methods: the flux-loop, which is sensitive to the bending field of all the dipoles of LEP; the spectrometer, which determines the energy through measurements of the deflection of the beam in a magnet of known integrated field; and an analysis of the variation of the synchrotron tune with the total RF voltage. To obtain the centre-of-mass energies, corrections are then applied to account for sources of bending field external to the dipoles, and variations in the local beam energy at each interaction point. The relative error on the centre-of-mass energy determination for the majority of LEP 2 running is 1.2 x 10^{-4}, which is sufficiently precise so as not to introduce a dominant uncertainty on the W mass measurement.Comment: 79 pages, 45 figures, submitted to EPJ

Evaluation of the LEP Centre-of-Mass Energy Above the W-Pair Production Threshold

Knowledge of the centre-of-mass energy at LEP2 is of primary importance to set the absolute energy scale for the measurement of the W-boson mass. The beam energy above 80 GeV is derived from continuous measurements of the magnetic bending field by 16 NMR probes situated in a number of the LEP dipoles. The relationship between the fields measured by the probes and the beam energy is calibrated against precise measurements of the average beam energy between 41 and 55 GeV made using the resonant depolarisation technique. The linearity of the relationship is tested by comparing the fields measured by the probes with the total bending field measured by a flux loop. This test results in the largest contribution to the systematic uncertainty. Several further corrections are applied to derive the the centre-of-mass energies at each interaction point. In addition the centre-of-mass energy spread is evaluated. The beam energy has been determined with a precision of 25 MeV for the data taken in 1997, corresponding to a relative precision of 2.7x10^{-4}. This is small in comparison to the present uncertainty on the W mass measurement at LEP. However, the ultimate statistical precision on the W mass with the full LEP2 data sample should be around 25 MeV, and a smaller uncertainty on the beam energy is desirable. Prospects for improvements are outlined.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Latex, epsfig; replaced by version accepted by European Physical Journal