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The imposition of the world's first modern income tax in 1799 prompted a revival of interest in national accounting. This article examines the extent to whichWilliamPitt the Younger, who proposed the new tax, modelled his estimates of national wealth on those produced a century earlier by the pioneers in this field,SirWilliamPetty,CharlesDavenant, andGregoryKing. In addition, the calculations ofBenjaminBell andHenryBeeke, two ofPitt's contemporaries, are analysed in detail to highlight the fragility of these contemporary estimates of national income. This analysis has important implications for economic historians who have used this material to try to establish the structure and growth of national output. National accountants during the long eighteenth century were not, for the most part, concerned with structural change. Rather, their descriptions of economic structure should be understood as reflecting a particular set of a priori claims about what they deemed to be the proper mode and distribution of taxation.

Government policies affecting the Canadian dairy industry represent a unique solution to a problem of surpluses which exists in most Western countries.

In this article, we articulate and defend a contextual approach to political theory. According to what we shall call 'iterative contextualism', context has two important roles to play in determining what is required by justice. First, it is through the exploration and evaluation of multiple contexts that general principles are devised, revised and refined. Second, significant weight should be given to the norms to be found in specific contexts because the people affected by those norms strongly identify with them. Having said this, the application of general principles to particular contexts may still result in recommendations which deviate to some degree from the prevailing norms. In this case, we shall argue, although justice requires something other than what local norms say, what is required is likely to be intimated by the relevant context. Thus, whilst considerations of identification act as significant constraints on iterative contextualists' thinking, the idea of intimations provides them with an important resource.

Rents in the Australian private rental sector (PRS) have long been determined by the market, but during the public health and economic crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, state and territory governments implemented emergency measures to prevent evictions and regulate rents. This article reviews the rent measures implemented and their outcomes, using survey data and other quantitative evidence, and interviews with PRS stakeholders. We find the rent measures, which relied on negotiations between individual landlords and tenants, had a modest effect–just 8–16% of tenants got a rent variation–and tenants, landlords and agents struggled in unfamiliar roles. The emergency period holds lessons and prompts questions about future directions in policy-making for rental affordability and PRS relations.

Western Ringtail Possums (Pseudocheirus occidentalis) are listed as conservation significant species with both State and Commonwealth governments. As a consequence any areas proposed for development that potentially support these possums are surveyed to determine their abundance. Here we report a decline in the number of P. occidentalis recorded for successive surveys during the same night suggesting that some individuals either retreat to areas where they are not visible or observer fatigue results in fewer possums being detected. In contrast, there was no difference in the number of Common Brushtail Possums (Trichosurus vulpecula hypoleucus) observed during the same surveys. This finding has important consequences for environmental consultants or researchers that are undertaking multiple surveys during a night to record local population sizes for Western Ringtail Possums in Western Australia.