Australian professor to speak on gun buybacks, top incomes

A top Australian economist will speak on the effectiveness of gun buyback programs and the impact of concentrated top incomes at two free talks in November in the first of a series of lectures that bring an international perspective on public policies to UW–Madison.

Andrew Leigh, an associate professor at the Research School of Social Science at the Australian National University, will discuss taxation data and income inequality in “Why Should We Care About Top Incomes?” at 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 17, at the Pyle Center.

The second talk, “Do Gun Buybacks Save Lives? Evidence from Panel Data,” will be at noon on Tuesday, Nov. 18, in the conference room of the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Leigh will review Australia’s 1997 large-scale gun buyback, which reduced the stock of that nation’s firearms by about 20 percent.

More information is available from La Follette’s outreach director, Terry Shelton, at 262-3038 or shelton@lafollette.wisc.edu.