Ideas for India e-Symposium: The idea of a universal basic income in the Indian context

In the last week of September 2016, the website Ideas for India published a symposium on universal basic income, featuring essays by six well-known Indian economists.

The e-symposium was conducted by Parikshit Ghosh, Professor at the Delhi School of Economics. Contributions are as follows:

• Pranab Bardhan (University of California, Berkeley) “Basic income in a poor country“

In his contribution, Bardhan allows that a universal basic income might be unaffordable in rich countries like the US and UK. But he argues that, nevertheless, a UBI is both feasible and desirable in India. Specifically, he considers a basic income set at about 75 percent of the poverty line, which would replace some but not all welfare programs. (Bardhan mentions public education, healthcare, childhood nutrition programs, and public works employment guarantee programs as ones that are important to retain.)

In addition to countering the argument that basic income would not be affordable, Bardhan responds to the objections that the policy would undermine the value of work and that poor individuals would squander their money. He admits, however, that gaining political support poses a struggle.

Bardhan’s article is an updated and extended version of a piece written for Project Syndicate in June.

• Abhijit Banerjee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and GiveDirectly) “Universal basic income: The best way to welfare“

Banerjee’s essay is a reprint of a piece initially published on the Indian Express in June, framed in the context of the defeat of the Swiss referendum on basic income. Banerjee argues that, despite the failure of the Swiss referendum, the debate on basic income is not over–and, specifically, India should consider UBI as a way to reduce bureaucracy and make the welfare system more efficient.

• Maitreesh Ghatak (London School of Economics) “Is India ready for a universal basic income scheme?“

In his article, originally published on NDTV, Ghatak argues that India can afford a basic income–specifically, one sufficient to bring every Indian above the poverty line–by cutting subsidies, reducing wasteful spending, and reforming the tax code. He maintains, additionally, that a basic income is not a silver bullet to eliminate poverty, and would need to be introduced in addition to (rather than in place of) other anti-poverty programs and strategies.

• Debraj Ray (New York University) “The universal basic share“

Ray develops a proposal for what he calls a universal basic share in India: a policy in which a fixed percentage of the country’s GDP is set aside to distribute to residents in the form of individual cash transfers. He admits that he has “no clue whether we have the political will to pull something like this off” but is hopeful that the ability to start with small shares might make the policy more tractable politically.

• Kalle Moene (University of Oslo) with Debraj Ray “The universal basic share and social incentives“

In a jointly authored piece with Moene, Ray expands upon the projected benefits of a universal basic share (UBS)–for social cohesion, economic growth, and even possibly sustainable development. They argue, moreover, that UBS can accomplish some of these goals more effectively than UBI.

• T.N. Srinivasan (Yale University) “Minimum standard of living for all Indians“

Srinivasan revisits a minimum income policy that was debated in India during the 1960s.

Reviewed by Robert Gordon

Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Rishi Bandopadhay