In reforming South Africa's personal income tax system, the Katz Commission relied heavily on equality and the constitution. It did not, however, explain its understanding of the meaning of equality in general or equality of taxation in particular, being content merely to mechanically remove what it perceived to be discriminatory words in the legislation. The meaning of equality of taxation on the other hand, was thoroughly debated by the classical economists. This article explains the classical economists' meaning of equality of taxation and demonstrates that the classical system of equality and that achieved by implementing the Katz Commission's recommendations are vastly different. In particular lower income groups, single income households and families are considerably worse off. Copyright (c) 2006 The Author. Journal compilation (c) 2006 Economic Society of South Africa.

Nicolas Bernoulli suggested the St Petersburg game, nearly 300 years ago, which is widely believed to produce a paradox in decision theory. This belief stems from a long standing mathematical error in the original calculation of the expected value of the game. This article argues that, in addition to the mathematical error, there are also methodological considerations which gave rise to the paradox. This article explains these considerations and why because of the modern computer, the same considerations, when correctly applied, also demonstrate that no paradox exists. Because of the longstanding belief that a paradox exists it is unlikely the mere mathematical correction will end the myth. The article explains why it is the methodological correction which will dispel the myth.

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Russon and Chang simulated St. Petersburg games and found that their results were inconsistent with their theoretical predictions. In this article, the theoretical outcomes are derived this time using the methodology suggested by Daniel Bernoulli, and games are then simulated. When this is done, it is found that the theoretical and empirical results are consistent.