The Distribution of Top Incomes in Australia

Using taxation statistics, we estimate the income share held by top income groups in Australia over the period 1921-2002. We find that the income share of the richest fell from the 1920s until the mid-1940s, rose briefly in the post-war decade, and then declined until the early-1980s. During the 1980s and 1990s, top income shares rose rapidly. At the start of the twenty-first century, the income share of the richest was higher than it had been at any point in the previous fifty years. Among top income groups, recent decades have also seen a rise in the share of top income accruing to the super-rich. Trends in top income shares are similar to those observed among other elite groups, such as judges, politicians, top bureaucrats and CEOs. We speculate that changes in top income shares may have been affected by top marginal tax rates, skill-biased technological change, social norms about inequality, and the internationalisation of the market for English-speaking CEOs.inequality, Australia

Effect of Carboxymethyl Cellulose Added at the Dosage Stage on the Foamability of a Bottle-Fermented Sparkling Wine

Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is used in winemaking to prevent potassium bitartrate or potassium hydrogen tartrate deposits from forming. These deposits are particularly detrimental when occurring in bottle-fermented sparkling wine ahead of disgorging or in the finished product as they can cause gushing of the wine when bottles are opened. Despite CMC being used by several sparkling winemaking producers both on the base wine and after disgorging, its effect on the behavior of foam, a key indicator of sparkling wine quality, has not been systematically tested. In this work the effect on wine composition and foam attributes of CMC additions to an English sparkling wine at the dosage stage was assessed. Results showed that CMC did not cause major changes on wine parameters, with the exception of wine viscosity, and did not result in major modification of the foamability of a wine, especially when analyzed in real serving conditions. These results suggest that, at least for the wine analyzed in this work, CMC could be added at the dosage stage without compromising its foam quality attributes

The Distribution of Top Incomes in Five Anglo-Saxon Countries over the Twentieth Century

Taxation data have been used to create long-run series for the distribution of top incomes in quite a number of countries. Most of these studies have focused on the national experience of individual countries, but we can also learn from cross-country comparisons. Comparative analysis is therefore the next stage in the research program. At the same time, we know from other fields that there are dangers in simply pooling all available time series, without regard to the specific nature of data and reality. In this paper, we therefore adopt an intermediate approach, taking five Anglo-Saxon countries that have relatively similar backgrounds and tax systems: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. The first part of the paper tackles the challenge of comparability of income-tax based estimates across countries and across time. The second part summarizes the evidence about top income shares. Across these five countries, the shares of the very richest exhibit a strikingly similar pattern, falling in the three decades after World War II, before rising sharply from the mid-1970s onwards. The share of the top 1 percent is highly correlated across Anglo-Saxon countries, more so than the share of the next 4 percent. The third part of the paper looks at the relationship between taxes and top income shares. Controlling for country and year fixed effects, we find that a reduction in the marginal tax rate on wage income is associated with an increase in the share of the top percentile group. Likewise, a fall in the marginal tax rate on investment income (based on a lagged moving average) is associated with a rise in the share of the top percentile group.inequality, taxation, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States

The Distribution of Top Incomes in Five Anglo-Saxon Countries over the Twentieth Century

Taxation data have been used to create long-run series for the distribution of top incomes in quite a number of countries. Most of these studies have focused on the national experience of individual countries, but we can also learn from cross-country comparisons. Comparative analysis is therefore the next stage in the research program. At the same time, we know from other fields that there are dangers in simply pooling all available time series, without regard to the specific nature of data and reality. In this paper, we therefore adopt an intermediate approach, taking five Anglo- Saxon countries that have relatively similar backgrounds and tax systems: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. The first part of the paper tackles the challenge of comparability of income-tax based estimates across countries and across time. The second part summarizes the evidence about top income shares. Across these five countries, the shares of the very richest exhibit a strikingly similar pattern, falling in the three decades after World War II, before rising sharply from the mid-1970s onwards. The share of the top 1 percent is highly correlated across Anglo-Saxon countries, more so than the share of the next 4 percent. The third part of the paper looks at the relationship between taxes and top income shares. Controlling for country and year fixed effects, we find that a reduction in the marginal tax rate on wage income is associated with an increase in the share of the top percentile group. Likewise, a fall in the marginal tax rate on investment income (based on a lagged moving average) is associated with a rise in the share of the top percentile group.inequality, taxation, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States

Are Big Gods a big deal in the emergence of big groups?

In Big Gods, Norenzayan (2013) presents the most comprehensive treatment yet of the Big Gods question. The book is a commendable attempt to synthesize the rapidly growing body of survey and experimental research on prosocial effects of religious primes together with cross-cultural data on the distribution of Big Gods. There are, however, a number of problems with the current cross-cultural evidence that weaken support for a causal link between big societies and certain types of Big Gods. Here we attempt to clarify these problems and, in so doing, correct any potential misinterpretation of the cross-cultural findings, provide new insight into the processes generating the patterns observed, and flag directions for future research

King Arthur In A Yankee Court: The United States Supreme Court\u27s Use Of European Law In Lawrence V. Texas

In July 2003, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a six to three decision\u27 that a state statute proscribing deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex \u27 2 violated the United States Constitution

Thyroid Carcinoma Secondary to Radiation Cloud Exposure from the Chernobyl Incident of 1986: A Case Study

The Chernobyl accident of 1986 exposed most if not all of Europe to a blanket of radiation, creating a melting pot of human exposure sequelae that is still showing up in our medical clinics today. In our particular clinic, a young woman of 29 years presented with most of her extended family in attendance. The young woman was born and raised in northern Italy until the age of seven when she left and immigrated to the United States leaving most of her family behind. Shortly after the Chernobyl accident, 5 members of her family, all woman including her own mother, were diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma. Twenty-two years later, this same young woman came into the clinic with papillary thyroid carcinoma, making her the sixth member of her family. This case report illustrates the patient's history with her radiation exposure while talking in depth about the source, Chernobyl

Catholic Integralism and Marian Receptivity in Wayne Johnston’s Newfoundland: Baltimore’s Mansion and the Catholic Imaginary

Wayne Johnston’s memoir is a political lament that cannot be understood unless readers engage with the family’s profound sense of religious loss. This literary act of mourning, voiced through Johnston’s family history, grieves the ruptured imaginary of Catholic integralism. To express the depth of this rift, Johnston constructs a philosophical impasse – a “grievous wound” – which operates as a symbolic locus of trauma originating from his father and son characters’ contending theological and political self-understandings. Arthur’s theo-political wound is inflicted by the deconstructive impact of the modern nation-state on cultures that maintain an intimate imaginative connection with the land. The land undergoes a topographical conversion from one set of imaginary correlates, Marian Newfoundland, to another, Canadian nationalism. Attending to the narrative structure, the critique of instrumental reason, and the overall “inculturation” of Catholicism in the Newfoundland imaginary helps demonstrate that theological themes pervade the entire texture of Johnston’s memoir

Saltwater Sacraments and Backwoods Sins: Contemporary Atlantic Canadian Literature and the Rise of Literary Catholicism

In the 1990s, Canadian readers were offered a new literary trend: the Atlantic Canadian Catholic novel. In this dissertation, I examine works from six authors whose writing reflects the scope of this trend and I argue for a consideration of their collective impact on our social imaginary. The bulk of my argument is devoted to an examination of the Catholic religious content in the five novels and one memoir: David Adams Richards’ Bay of Love and Sorrows (1998); Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees (1996); Lynn Coady’s Strange Heaven (1996); Wayne Johnston’s Baltimore’s Mansion: A Memoir (1999); Patrick Kavanagh’s Gaff Topsails (1996); and Michael Crummey’s The Wreckage (2005). These novels are indicative of what is more broadly referred to as the contemporary “return of religion” in Western discourse and politics. But what exactly does this revitalized religious discourse tell us? It is my contention that the rise of the Catholic novel in Atlantic Canada signals shifts in what we consider as the “religious” and the “secular.” I offer an account of this shifting religious-secular dynamic in my introduction. While each of the works I study is unique, there are consistent theological constructs that are repeated through them all. I have called these consistencies a “theological aesthetic.” They include: firstly, the analogy of being—a specific linguistic pattern for considering the similarities and differences between God and humanity; secondly, the spiritual sense—a way of reading Scripture which allows for figures and events to take on significance that resonates beyond the literal element of the text; and thirdly, gathered time—a description of the way that eternity relates to temporal beings. These three aspects of the theological aesthetic offer insight into contemporary Western understandings of the relations between the secular (nature) and the religious (grace). I argue that instead of putting the emphasis on the extreme difference between nature and grace, as was done by the influential Protestant movements that underwrote the earlier Atlantic Canadian imaginary, the current shifts have allowed for a more broadly defined nature-grace continuum. To understand this shift we require a fuller distinction between what I call “Secular I” (as described in most earlier secularization theories) and “Secular II” (now sometimes referred to as the “post-secular”). In my final chapter, I offer an explanation of this shifting religious-secular dynamic through an historical overview of key texts in the Atlantic literary canon. I theorize the shift from a stable divide between the religious and the secular that was managed by a general Protestant ethos, to a more stringent privatization of religion. While many have naturalized the resulting secularism, I claim that this recent Catholic literary trend challenges our preconceived notions about what constitutes secular and religious contributions, and thus, frustrates any notion of purity on the side of the secular or the religious. Understood this way, the contemporary Catholic novel in Atlantic Canada, which could stereotypically be thought to express marginal concerns, reflects a post-secular innovation that represents a transnational critique of the Protestant structures that underpin our social imaginary

Effect of variations in load profile on power transformer cyclic ratings

Cyclic rating and demand side management (DSM) schemes are employed by electrical supply authorities to manage peak demand as an alternative to costly network upgrades. This project investigated the currently unknown impact of DSM altered load profiles on the cyclic ratings of power transformers. In response to electricity price increases, supply authorities are employing cyclic rating and DSM techniques to defer capital expenditure. A cyclic rating exploits transformer thermal inertia to permit loading above nameplate for parts of a 24 hour cycle, compensated for by loading below nameplate at other times such that insulation thermal limits are not exceeded. DSM aims to flatten load profiles commonly by transferring load from peak to off-peak times. Both techniques ensure that existing transformers can supply load peaks. Cyclic ratings achieve this by boosting capacity above demand while DSM reduces demand below capacity. In this way, the two techniques permit deferral of network upgrades. Since DSM alters the load profiles on which cyclic ratings are based, a relationship must exist between the two. The plant rating engineer must understand all such dependencies, hence the need for this project. Initially, thermal transformer models proposed by various researchers and AS 60076.7 for the purpose of predicting transformer oil and paper temperatures were studied. The AS 60076.7 models and one selected from the literature were then implemented in Matlab and compared to assess their suitability for use in the project and by plant rating engineers. The selected thermal model then became the basis of a cyclic rating calculator employed to automate the computation of cyclic ratings based on the AS 60076.7 specification. DSM techniques were researched to reveal the load shifting version as the method favoured by supply authorities and a simulator was constructed in Matlab to modify load profiles accordingly. 12 diverse Ergon Energy transformers were then selected along with a set of DSM modified load profiles as inputs to the cyclic rating calculator which computed 600 cyclic ratings for analysis. The final phase of the project then involved analysis of the ratings to determine and quantify the effect of DSM caused load profile changes on cyclic ratings. It was determined that the cyclic ratings of power transformers are negatively affected by load shifting DSM. That is, attening of load profiles causes reduction in cyclic ratings. The amount by which cyclic ratings change given a change in load profile varies according to several factors including: location, size and cooling mode of the transformer. Regression models for simple but approximate prediction of cyclic rating changes were developed. Generalised expressions for predicting the change in cyclic rating with change in peak load or load factor are: ΔCRFd = 0:45 x ΔPLd ΔCRFd = 0:37 x ΔLFi where: ΔCRFd is the percentage decrease in CRF; ΔPLd is the percentage decrease in peak load; & ΔLFi is the percentage increase in load factor. In addition to achievement of the main project objective - determination of the impact on cyclic ratings of load profile changes - a range of other outcomes from the project are useful. These include: a thorough investigation of the techniques and theory involved in transformer thermal modelling, insulation ageing, cyclic rating calculation and DSM; a program which automatically calculates cyclic ratings for power transformers; and a load shifting DSM simulation program, useful for generating altered load profiles for use with the cyclic rating calculator. This collection of knowledge and programs will be of particular use to Ergon Energy, the project sponsor. The impact of load shifting DSM on cyclic ratings, as identified in this dissertation, has the potential to negatively influence factors such as: peak capacity; transformer lifespan and maintenance; planning and budgeting for network augmentation; reduction of capital expenditure; and the valuation of DSM programs. The results and outcomes of this project have the potential to assist plant rating engineers in their understanding and application of cyclic ratings in the context of changing load profiles such that they may anticipate and therefore prevent many of the negative side-effects identified