by Yannick Vanderborght | Aug 15, 2013 | Research
This paper compares BI models and discussion in Finland, Germany and Spain.
Perkio, Johanna, “Basic Income Proposals in Finland, Germany and Spain,” Discussion Paper No. 2, Transform! European network for alternative thinking and political dialogue, 2013, online at: https://transform-network.net/programmes/discussion-papers/news/detail/Programm/basic-income-proposals-in-finland-germany-and-spain.html
It’s also online as a PDF at: https://transform-network.net/uploads/tx_news/Paper_no2_perkioe_EN.pdf
The appendix is online at: https://transform-network.net/uploads/tx_news/Basic_Income_in_Europe.Tabellen.corr_mitangenommenenAenderungen.pdf
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 14, 2013 | Research
Written as response to the article, “Six Lessons from the Alaska Model,” by Karl Widerquist, C.A. L’Hirondelle, Frederik Schenk, and Eric Manneschmidt argue that resource dividends are not a good source of funding for a basic income because, “The Alaska Permanent Fund and concepts like it are created to corrupt people into accepting a business that they might otherwise strongly oppose.” The authors support BIG, but not this method of financing.
L’Hirondelle, C.A., Frederik Schenk, and Eric Manneschmidt, “Why Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend is a bad idea,” Livable4all, July 12, 2013.
From Livable4all
by Yannick Vanderborght | Aug 14, 2013 | News
Namibia is experiencing its worst drought in decades and the President has declared a state of emergency. By now nearly 800,000 people are affected and in urgent need of support. At the initiation of Bishop Kameeta, of the Lutheran Churches in Namibia, has organized several groups to focus their main response on paying a cash grant to four communities across the country for a period of six months.
Groups involved include LFW (Lutheran World Federation), LUCSA (Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa), TARA (Theological Institute for Advocacy & Research in Africa), and the Act-Alliance. LUCSA-TARA will implement the cash response to the drought. TARA and the LWF emergency co-ordinator for Southern Africa recently travelled through Namibia to assess the situation on the ground and to plan the cash response.
If you would like to donate to the effort, go to the following link (also providing impressions of the extreme situation many households in Namibia are facing): https://www.lutheranworld.org/content/emergency-drought-angola-and-namibia
More images of the current situations are online: https://www.cdhaarmann.com/Pictures/Drought%20Relief%20Namibia%20July%202013/index.html
. In one of the inteA recently abandoned cattle postrviews we learned that due to a lack of grazing the herders had moved on. However, there is little hope to find grazing anywhere within reach. Location: 50km north of Sesfontein in the Kunene region. Photo: Dirk Haarmann
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 13, 2013 | News
Karl Widerquist will discuss the basic income guarantee as a way to provide a more effective social safety net in Namibia at a conference in Windhoek on September 26, 2013. He will discuss the experience in Alaska with its dividend program as well as pilot projects in Namibia, Indian, Uganda, and other places. The conference is hosted by the Namibian central bank.
Karl Widerquist is an Associate Professor at SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University. He holds two doctorates—one in Political Theory from Oxford University (2006) and one in Economics from the City University of New York (1996). He has published six books, the most recent of which is Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A theory of freedom as the power to say no.
Karl Widerquist, “Social safety nets in Namibia: Assessing current programmes and future options,” Featured Speaker, Windhoek, Namibia, Bank of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia, September 26, 2013. For more information, see the following two websites:
https://www.bon.com.na/Annual-Symposium.aspx
https://www.bon.com.na/Annual-Symposium/Annual-Symposium-Speakers.aspx
Annual Symposium: Social safety nets in Namibia
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 12, 2013 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
A randomized field study recently conducted in Uganda found that giving money to people without conditions actually increases both how much they work and how much they earn per hour. The study gave a $400 one-time grant to 20 young people, chosen randomly out of a group of rural Ugandans who applied to be a part of the study. Essentially, this grant amount is a one-time basic income, sometimes called a basic capital grant.
Perhaps, $400 doesn’t sound like much, but because poverty is so high in rural Kenya, the $400 grant is equivalent to an entire year’s income for the people in the study. Researchers then followed the recipients for two and a half years to see how they behaved relative to rural Ugandans who did not receive the grant. What they found might surprise some readers.
Two-and-a-half years later, receipts of the grant worked 17% more hours than similar Ugandans who did not receive the grant, and they earned higher wages and salaries, so that their incomes increased by even more than the hours the worked for a total increase of 50%. If those who did not receive the grant were making $400 per year, recipients were making $600 per year. No one knows yet how long the differential will last, but it is likely to accumulate for at least several years, perhaps many years.
The reasons for the increase in wages and hours worked are not yet certain, but possible explanations stem back to the extreme poverty experienced by so many people in developing nations. People who face such low wages have very little time to spend either improving their skills or looking for better work. They simply must spend their time focusing on getting enough food for the next day. A basic income gives them the opportunity to step back, improve their skills and/or look for a better job.
The theoretical possibility that basic income could have a positive affect on wages and hours worked (especially among the poorest people) has been understood for a long time. But this study provides an extremely important piece of empirical confirmation.
The basic income debate should take these results seriously. These results challenge the widely-held (yet rarely-empirically-investigated) belief that poor people are poor because they are too lazy either to work hard or to learn better skills. There are billions of people around the world living on less than two dollars per day. Perhaps unconditional cash is what they need most.
-Karl Widerquist, begun in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland, completed in Beaufort, North Carolina, USA
See earlier posts on BI News about this study.
For more on this study see this blog post by one of the authors of the study: Blattman, Chris, “Dear governments: Want to help the poor and transform your economy? Give people cash,” Chris Blattman: International development, politics, economics, and policy, 23 May 2013
See also the original study: Blattman, Christopher, Nathan Fiala, and Sebastian Martinez “Credit Constraints, Occupational Choice, and the Process of Development: Long Run Evidence from Cash Transfers in Uganda,” the Social Science Research Network, May 20, 2013
And the following editorial: Yglesias, Matthew, “Good News About Unconditional Transfers to the Global Poor,” Slate May 29, 2013
