by Kate McFarland | Sep 27, 2017 | Research
The Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath has released a policy brief titled “Assessing the Case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK”.
The 94-page policy brief surveys the rise in popularity of the idea of universal basic income (UBI), especially in the UK context, and examines its feasibility and possible implementation strategies.
The report’s author, IRP Research Associate Luke Martinelli, draws upon his previous microsimulation studies, including “The Fiscal and Distributional Implications of Alternative Universal Basic Income Schemes in the UK” (March 2017) and “Exploring the Distributional and Work Incentive Effects of Plausible Illustrative Basic Income Schemes” (May 2017). He supplements his own work with the simulation analyses of other researchers, including Malcolm Torry (Citizen’s Income Trust) and Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley (Compass) in the UK and Olli Kangas (Kela) in Finland. Martinelli argues that microsimulation techniques, which can be used to model the economic effects of UBI at a national level, allow researchers to address questions about the feasibility and desirability of UBI that are out-of-reach by “real-world” experiment–given that the latter “do not test for the crucial effects of accompanying tax changes, nor examine how changes in income and behavioural responses would be distributed across different demographic groups in the case of a truly universal payment” (p 16).
In Chapter 3 of the policy brief, Martinelli applies these simulation studies to the question of the affordability of UBI. Investigating both full and partial UBI schemes, Martinelli investigates the fiscal implications of the policy for the UK government, taking into account potential adjustments to the existing tax and benefit system, as well as their consequences for poverty and inequality. Overall, Martinelli finds that data “appear to suggest” that “it is possible to design a UBI such that it is both affordable and adequate” (emphasis in original), with the most feasible option being a partial UBI on top of existing means-tested benefits (p 48). However, he issues several notes of caution in interpreting this (apparent) consequence.
One cautionary note concerns the fact that the simulation studies use only static models, which do not provide for possible changes in labor market participation resulting from the introduction of UBI. In Chapter 4, however, Martinelli examines the labor market effects of UBI in detail, again drawing upon simulation studies. Here, he considers the results of studies that model the impact of UBI schemes on financial work incentives, concluding that UBI does significantly improve incentives, especially for low-income groups and recipients of means-tested benefits (although, as the author admits, monetary incentives are “by no means the only factor affecting labour supply decisions,” p 63). In this chapter, Martinelli supplements the simulation analysis with empirical findings from previous experiments on unconditional cash benefits (including, especially, from the negative income tax experiments conducted in Manitoba in the late 1970s). He also reviews a range of theoretical considerations, including the prima facie tension between the positions of UBI supporters who see the policy as a way of incentivizing employment (e.g. as contrasted to means-tested benefit schemes) and those who advocate the policy as providing an “exit option” from employment.
In the final chapter of the policy brief, Martinelli scrutinizes implementational challenges facing UBI in the UK, including complications building political coalitions around the idea. As Martinelli stresses, apparent political consensus around UBI is likely to dissolve when specific policy implementations are issue. In concluding the report, he urges supporters of UBI not to demand a full basic income immediately, but instead to consider an incremental approach. As potential first steps, Martinelli mentioned a small universal payment (“partial basic income”) or a basic income restricted to certain age groups (e.g., as suggested by Malcolm Torry, young adults or adults nearing pension age).
The full report can be downloaded here:
Luke Martinelli, “Assessing the Case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK”, Institute for Policy Research, September 2017.
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
Photo (Bath, England) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 David McKelvey
by Kate McFarland | Sep 25, 2017 | Research
Cairn’s Monthly Dossiers is a free online publication designed to highlight the work of francophone scholars in the social sciences and humanities. Each month, the publication focuses on a topic of current social or political relevance.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) was the topic selected for the debut issue, released on June 15, 2017. As the introduction to the dossier notes, the issue came to prominence in France earlier in the year due the campaign of presidential candidate Benoît Hamon, who won the Socialist Party primary after making a UBI proposal a cornerstone of his campaign.
The dossier features the work of Stéphan Lipiansky, Jean-Éric Hyafil, Denis Clerc and François Meunier.
Lipiansky, an associate professor of economics and management, examines the rise of interest in UBI in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, linking it to the decay of a “social consensus” around the goal of full employment. He emphasizes UBI’s potential role in a cultural shift in which occupational identity is no longer the key defining attribute of an individual’s social role.
Hyafil, a leader of the French BIEN affiliate Mouvement Français pour un Revenu de Base, presents UBI as a means to emancipate individuals from the need to work (in view of the fact that, in present society, the pressure to work leads to the creation of and participation in “bullshit jobs” of little or no social utility). In his article, he delineates a UBI proposal for France, and describes a path to introducing the policy through a series of reforms to the revenu de solidarité active (RSA), the country’s existing minimum income scheme for the poor and unemployed (currently €460 per month).
Clerc, the founder of Alternatives Économiques, considers UBI proposals of three different monthly amounts–€100, €460 (equivalent to the RSA), and €800 (equivalent to the minimum pension)–and argues that any potential benefits are too uncertain to merit the risks and certain costs of implementing the policy. As an alternative social policy, he proposes lifelong training to increase individuals’ employability.
Meunier, an economist and consultant, takes on two arguments commonly given for UBI: that it is more respectful to recipients due to its lack of surveillance and paternalism, and that it is easier to administer due to its simplicity. Meunier contends that conditional welfare is not objectionable in its level of oversight–which might be construed as the expression of care for beneficiaries–and that the simplicity is illusory.
The dossier also includes links to supplemental material (in French) by Anton Monti (on the Finnish experiment), Philippe Warin (on the phenomenon of non-usage of the RSA and its implications for UBI), and Yannick Vanderborght and Philippe Van Parijs (on the history of the idea of UBI and its differences from programs like the RSA).
The second issue of Cairn’s Monthly Dossiers was on the topic of Populism.
Parisian café photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Jeff Dzadon
by Kate McFarland | Sep 21, 2017 | Research
Matt Wilder, doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto, won first place in the 2016 Progressive Economics Forum (PEF) graduate student essay contest with his paper “Debating Unconditional Basic Income”.
A revised version of Wilder’s award-winning paper has recently been published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science.
Abstract:
Much of the literature on unconditional basic income considers reciprocity to be necessary for its success. From a normative standpoint, receiving without giving is unjust. From a technical standpoint, the absence of mechanisms that promote reciprocation invites free riding which threatens to erode the economic structure upon which the system of distribution depends. As a solution, it has been proposed that communities adopt social norms that encourage basic income recipients to contribute to the productive capacity of society by engaging in volunteer work. This article interrogates whether this alternative to conditionality is consistent with the rationale for implementing unconditional basic income and finds the instillation of stronger norms to be unnecessary for the project’s success.
Wilder uses data from the World Values Survey to establish his claim that stronger social norms are unnecessary to reduce the threat of freeriding, arguing that individuals with income security are already inclined to act altruistically.
The PEF student essay contest is open to all Canadian students, with separate competitions for graduate and undergraduate students. The graduate competition carries a $1000 cash award for the first prize.
Wilder also won the 2014 PEF graduate student essay contest for “Internationalization and Variable Confluence in State-Assisted Economic Sectors: Lessons from Canada’s Experience Under Free Trade”.
Reviewed by Caroline Pearce
Photo: Soup kitchen in Montreal, CC BY 2.0 Gerry Lauzon
by Kate McFarland | Sep 17, 2017 | Research
The Polish political philosophy journal Praktyka Teoretyczna (“Theoretical Practice”) has published a special issue on the relative merits of a basic income and job guarantee.
The contents of the issue are freely available online, although only in Polish.
Contributors contain a mix of supporters and critics of each of the two policies.
Mariusz Baranowski and Bartosz Mika compare basic income and job guarantee programs with respect to a variety of metrics, including funding and cost, impact on existing social security systems, impact on income inequality, and emancipatory effects, ultimately favoring a job guarantee. Pavlina Tcherneva investigates the relative macroeconomic impacts expected from the two types of policies, arguing that a job guarantee possesses an economic stabilizing effect not possessed by basic income. Further, Tcherneva argues that a job guarantee has a greater potential to contribute to sustainable development and ecological goals.
Angelina Kussy and Félix Talego Vázquez, on the other hand, argue for a basic income as a component in a new understanding of work. The authors use ethnographic research of the communitarian Spanish village of Marinaleda to critique contemporary notions of “work”. Zofia Łapniewska also questions the assumptions that form the foundations of current economic institutions–developing a proposal for an alternative economy based on the ethics of care. She uses this as a basis for further consideration of policies including basic income and employment guarantees.
In addition to original articles, the issue also includes a review of BIEN cofounder Guy Standing’s 2017 book Basic Income: And How Can We Make It Happen, as well as a review of the work of economist Mariana Mazzucato.
The edition was edited by Maciej Szlinder, who is Praktyka Teoretyczna’s political philosophy editor as well as an active participant in Poland’s basic income movement.
Praktyka Teoretyczna is an open-access peer-reviewed journal, with new issues published quarterly. Its content focuses on “continuously question[ing] the relation between theory and practice”, and is especially aimed at fostering the development of young researchers.
Reviewed by Caroline Pearce
Photo: Worker in Poland, CC BY 2.0 Chris
by Kate McFarland | Sep 9, 2017 | Research
Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, authors of the new book Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy (Harvard University Press), have contributed a chapter to the book The Good Life Beyond Growth: New Perspectives, a collection of essays published as part of Routledge’s series Studies in Ecological Economics.
Their contribution, titled “Basic income and the freedom to lead a good life,” is based on the first chapter of Basic Income, in which the authors detail the distinguishing characteristics of a basic income (e.g. universality, lack of means test, lack of work obligation, payment to individuals rather than households), providing motivation for each of these features.
Van Parijs and Vanderborght introduce basic income as a way to address poverty and unemployment without reliance on sustained economic growth. Summarizing their position near the end of the chapter, they state:
Involuntary unemployment is a major challenge. But activation and growth, routinely offered as self-evident remedies, are both unrealistic and undesirable. An unconditional basic income offers a way of addressing this challenge without relying on an insane rush for keeping pace with labor saving technical change through the sustained growth of production and consumption.
They contend that a basic income would “mak[e] it easier for people to choose to perform less paid work at any given point in their lives” and “subsidiz[e] paid work with low immediate productivity”. Further, they claim, such lifestyle choices would result in lower material consumption in developed nations. In this way, the “freedom to lead a good life” supported by basic income would promote sustainability goals.
The collection The Good Life Beyond Growth originated with a conference by the same name, which was held in May 2015 at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, and convened by the university’s Research Group on Post-Growth Societies. At this conference, which presented interdisciplinary perspectives on questions of “what a good human life is about, what its subjective and objective conditions are, and how it may be reframed for a post-growth society,” Van Parijs presented “Good Life and the Welfare State” with another founding member of BIEN, Claus Offe.
Van Parijs and Vanderborght’s contribution is the only chapter in The Good Life Beyond Growth to deal specifically or at length with the idea of basic income. Another contributor, the social theorist and political economist Andrew Sayer, mentions the idea, but expresses doubt that it is the best means to achieve societal well-being without growth.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo CC BY 2.0 Giuseppe Milo
by Kate McFarland | Sep 1, 2017 | Research
Teppo Eskelinen and Johanna Perkiö have published “Micro-investment perspective and the potential of the universal basic income” in Development Policy Review (June 2017).
Eskelinen and Perkiö analyze basic income as a tool to promote micro-investments by poor individuals and households, hypothesizing that a basic income would impart to such households a “greater confidence to undertake more risky activities, knowing they will have a minimum income to fall back on.”
As they explain in the abstract, the authors “aim to estimate potential impacts of the BI by synthesising existing knowledge. This estimation will not be quantitative, but rather show likely outcomes of a BI scheme. We will complement existing knowledge by exploring cognate cash transfer policies and other experiences that bear similarity to the BI.”
As a core part of their analysis, the authors examine the pilot studies conducted in the Namibian village of Otjivero-Omitara (2008 to 2009) and the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh (2011 to 2013), looking especially at the effects on “labour, behavioural impacts, psychological impacts, and investment in human capital.” Regarding psychological impacts, they point out that, in the Madhya Pradesh experiment, “households receiving cash grants were three times more likely to start a new business or production activity than control group households,” which appears to affirm their conjecture that “the availability of money combined with a sense of security is what eventually determines the occurrence of micro-investment.” Regarding behavior, they note a “recurring observation” that part of recipients’ additional income was “invested in income-generating activities.”
Eskelinen is a philosopher and social scientist who has published on political theory, political economy, global justice, and development theory. He is senior lecturer at University of Jyväskylä.
Perkiö is a doctoral candidate in the social sciences at the University of Tampere, writing her dissertation on the history of the basic income debate in Finland (see her November 2016 presentation for Kela). Many of her previous articles and blog posts on basic income available online, including the Transform! Network discussion paper “Basic Income Proposals in Finland, Germany and Spain,” the International Solidarity Work report “Universal Basic Income – A New Tool for Development Policy?,” and a response to the OECD’s recent critical report on basic income, published on Kela’s blog.
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
Photo: Store in Madhya Pradesh, CC BY 2.0 Brian Gratwicke
