by Josh Martin | Feb 26, 2020 | News
Universal basic income continues to grow in popularity among American politicians. Mike Broihier, running for the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Kentucky, announced via Medium that he will include a universal basic income as a part of his campaign’s goal to “equalize economic opportunity for all Kentuckians and Americans”.
A former Marine, current farmer, and substitute public teacher, Broihier decided to include UBI on his platform due to his son’s interest in the Yang campaign and in how a basic income could ensure economic fairness. As Broihier sought out more education on the arguments for and against basic income, he spoke to Scott Santens, a basic income advocate and former Yang campaign surrogate, who addressed his questions and ended up agreeing to serve as an advisor to Broihier’s Senate campaign.
With Santens onboard, the Broihier campaign will certainly try to generate the enthusiasm Yang harnessed for basic income to push them to the Senate nomination. Running for the right to face Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Broihier faces competition from other Democratic candidates in what promises to be a contested primary process.
Asked to comment on joining Broihier’s team, Santens wrote: “I’m excited to join Mike’s team to help him defeat Mitch McConnell with a platform of UBI for economic and social justice. After pushing for UBI for years, I’m honored to get the opportunity to now help make the case to the people of Kentucky that UBI is about far more than robots. It’s about building a foundation underneath us all, upon which to build a future of universal opportunity. Our increasingly productive economy should work for each and every individual and community instead of slowly destroying them. Kentucky has powered this country with their natural wealth for 200 years. They deserve better than being abandoned as the country moves towards sustainable energy. Just like Alaskans, Kentuckians deserve their dividend share of their natural resources. It may be two centuries late, but the second best time is now, and I believe Mike is the guy to do it.”
Speaking to Basic Income News, Broihier doubled down on the connection between resources and a basic income, as he mentioned Alaska’s Permanent Fund and similar sovereign wealth fund models as convincing evidence of the need for a basic income. Citing Kentucky’s decades of an “extractive economy” focused on lumber and coal, Broihier argues that Kentuckians should share in the wealth generated by those resources. This thesis of sharing in the wealth generated by shared land is reminiscent of Thomas Paine’s argument for a basic income in Agrarian Justice.
Broihier’s support for basic income fits his larger vision to fundamentally shift the debate on key questions related to economic and social justice. For example, he told Basic Income News that we need to reframe the immigration debate to look through interventions in Central America over the past hundred years to acknowledge the role America played in generating the regional economic system and the migration we see today.
In his post on Medium, Broihier sums up his support for basic income nicely: “If we’re going to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, it seems to me the first thing we all need is the money to buy boots.”
Basic Income News does not endorse political candidates.
Read more:
Mike Broihier campaign website and issues page that includes UBI.
Mike Broihier. “Why I believe Kentucky deserves a universal basic income”. Medium. 26 February 2020.
by Tyler Prochazka | Jan 29, 2020 | Opinion
As US presidential candidate Andrew Yang continues to outperform expectations, his signature policy proposal, the Freedom Dividend or Universal Basic Income (UBI), is receiving increased scrutiny. Some of the criticisms are well warranted, while others are misconceptions based on a flawed understanding of how basic income would operate.
The following addresses some of the primary misconceptions regarding Yang’s plan.
UBI is too expensive
The cost issue is one of the most persistent misconceptions about basic income.
A basic income system would have a built-in clawback through the tax system. In Yang’s case, a portion of the clawback comes through the opt-in system that would substitute cash-like welfare programs for the Freedom Dividend, such as food assistance. However, most of the burden of the clawback would be on the wealthiest families who would pay more in taxes than they could receive from basic income
As I have noted previously, the UBI clawback can be both direct and indirect. For example, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires families to pay back some or all of their healthcare subsidies at the end of the year if their yearly income exceeds a certain amount. A UBI system can similarly create a phase-out in the income tax system.
Considering Yang’s Freedom Dividend is opt-in, it is likely that many wealthy families would not opt to receive the dividend anyway.
Indirect clawback mechanisms could include Yang’s proposed Value Added Tax (VAT). The VAT is effectively a national sales tax, meaning even lower-income people would pay back a portion of their basic income depending on how much they spend their dividend on taxed goods.
Yang has said he would exclude many essential items from the VAT, though. Calculations show the VAT combined with UBI would have a net positive effect on purchasing power for low-income individuals.
Any taxes paid on the UBI would be used for the following year’s dividend, meaning much of the money is repeatedly recycled through the system. The additional amount that is redistributed to lower-income families is called the “net cost” or real cost of basic income. The net cost is the amount the government would actually redistribute every year under UBI.
Factoring the clawback, the real cost of basic income to the government would be approximately $539 billion annually, according to Georgetown Professor Karl Widerquist. This is less than 25 percent of existing entitlement spending.
UBI would have the same cost as a Negative Income Tax (NIT) when factoring the clawback, but the sticker price of the gross cost creates a false impression of a higher cost for UBI. NIT is not universal — it only provides the subsidy to those who qualify, making the cost appear lower than UBI. When I asked Yang whether he would support NIT to avoid the cost misconception, he said NIT would be a step in the right direction.
UBI would cause inflation
The inflation misconception has been around for many years, but it has become more convincingly debunked since I first wrote about it nearly three years ago.
It is essential to note that Yang’s plan is redistributing existing cash, not printing new cash. For every dollar spent, there must be a dollar taxed first, which would offset inflationary pressures.
As Karl Widerquist noted, basic income is no different than other welfare programs in terms of increasing demand for goods. Denmark has one of the most generous welfare states in the world, but they also consistently experience a low and stable inflation rate below two percent.
In the United States, food assistance, which can be freely spent like cash on most food items, has not produced inflation in food prices. On the contrary, research from the London School of Economics shows in states with higher take-up of food stamp assistance, prices have dropped and there is greater product variety relative to those areas with lower food assistance take-up. This is because suppliers respond to increased demand with more competition entering the market.
Thus, the guaranteed demand from basic income could generate higher levels of competition that brings down costs for low-income people.
In Alaska, which has a small Universal Basic Income funded by oil revenues, inflation has been lower than the U.S. average since the program started. Other research in Mexico demonstrates that directly giving cash does not produce inflation.
Since the United States is a globalized market, any short term demand spike creates an economic profit that is resolved by increased production, bringing the price down in the long-run.
In fact, the United States is experiencing unusually low levels of inflation. Contributing factors could include the Amazon.com effect, automation, immigration, and global trade. Basic income would not change these underlying factors keeping a hold on inflation.
The main area where there could be meaningful inflation in the medium term is the cost of rent because there is a fixed supply of land.
Basic income could empower more people to move and find other options. Renters would have a better bargaining position with their landlord if they had a guaranteed dividend than if they are desperately clinging to their job.
In the long-run, greater purchasing power from low-income people should induce more homebuilding and open up a greater share of unoccupied housing. That said, the high cost of rent exists now in many areas and should be addressed as a separate policy issue.
Nonetheless, it is unlikely that any inflation from UBI could completely wipe out the improved purchasing power from the dividend, let alone make people worse off.
UBI would cause laziness
The problem of laziness is one of the most thoroughly debunked misconceptions about UBI. Among those who closely study cash transfers, many no longer consider labor participation an interesting research question because the results consistently show no effect. Those who have read the relevant research and are still convinced that basic income causes laziness will likely never be persuaded otherwise.
As I reported in 2016, “The Overseas Development Institute just released the largest meta-analysis of cash transfer programs ever, spanning 15 years of data and 165 studies. The main takeaway is that studies show a consistent reduction in poverty measures. Perhaps an even more important conclusion is that most evidence showed an increase in work participation after receiving the basic income.”
Many specific examples from across the developmental spectrum corroborate the conclusion that basic income would not meaningfully reduce work. In Finland’s basic income experiment, there was no negative effect on work. Iran’s generous basic income did not reduce overall work but did cause some young people to substitute their time for more schooling. In Alaska, their partial basic income did not reduce overall work. On the contrary, Alaska’s basic income increased part-time work due to the increased demand generated by a basic income.
With a permanent basic income, there is reason to believe that a healthier and more productive labor market will emerge. For example, the Finland experiment showed basic income recipients were happier and more trusting overall. Many polls indicate that individuals would use the basic income to gain additional skills, spend time with family, volunteer, and engage in freelancing.
If the poor are no longer clinging to a job for survival, they can more freely find a job where they can be the most productive. They will also have more bargaining power to demand better working environments.
Most importantly, basic income would allow greater time and mental energy to be focused on the most important job in society: caregiving. Volunteering and caregiving provide enormous economic and societal benefits that are not recorded in GDP because they are typically unpaid.
Basic income gives people the right to say no to exploitation. But the most revolutionary aspect of UBI is that it finally gives everyone the opportunity to yes to their passions.
by Guest Contributor | Sep 11, 2019 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This is a guest post by Rahul Basu for The Indepentarian Blog. Welcome, Rahul.
Author: Rahul Basu
The Future We Need
This is a comment on Karl Widerquist’s excellent proposal for a People’s Endowment. I’m a member of The Future We Need (TFWN), a global campaign to make the intergenerational equity principle foundational for our civilization. Similar to Karl, the core idea is that we, the present generation, are simply custodians over what we inherit. We must ensure that future generations inherit what we did. Ideally, we would leave a bequest. Importantly, if we fail to follow this rule, then each successive generation becomes poorer with civilization collapse and human extinction as the final result. And it is clear that our current civilization has been consuming its capital base, bringing these possibilities into fruition.
Capital vs revenue
We make a critical distinction between capital (the corpus of our inheritance) and revenue – the surplus after we ensure the corpus is kept whole. Minerals, being non-renewable, are purely capital in nature. Broadcast spectrum, regenerated each instant, is purely revenue in nature. When companies (like nuggetsbygrant.com) invest in minerals that they extract and sell, the entire proceeds must only be used to fund new intergenerational assets to ensure the endowment corpus remains intact. In the case of minerals, we insist that the proceeds only be saved in a future-generations fund (FGF) as Karl also suggests.
Only the real income from the endowment, ie, the income after compensating for inflation, may be used or distributed. By contrast, the fees for the broadcast spectrum could be used as it is a renewable resource without first saving it in a future generations fund. Reasoning from property rights logic, we insist that all such recurring income from public endowments must be distributed only as a citizen’s dividend. A diversion of the recurring income to the budget is effectively imposing a per head tax. Of course the government may tax the people, even the dividend, through explicit legislation, thereby strengthening the social contract.
Defending the commons
If we reason from Ostrom’s principles for long lived commons, an important aspect is that the commoners must benefit directly from the commons. In the absence of this direct benefit, there is little reason to defend the commons, and it will be lost. Alaska’s famous Permanent Fund Dividend was explicitly designed to link Alaskans to their Permanent Fund and to help defend it for future generations of Alaska. The endowment income and especially its capital are a great political temptation. As long as the income is absolutely equally distributed, it affords no help in creating a winning electoral coalition.
Unlike Karl, who suggests a 50:50 split of the income between a dividend and the budget, we insist that the only distribution from the endowment be as a Citizen’s Dividend. The primary reason is that any other division between the dividend and the budget is fundamentally arbitrary. Even if only 1% is currently diverted to the budget, through budget crises, politicians will attempt to capture more until nothing is left. Only a rule that distributions must only be through a dividend can be defended against political attack. And without the dividend, even the fund will come under attack. While protecting the endowment for future generations is the principal reason behind our rules, our posts Why income distribution only as Citizen’s Dividend and Why 100% to Permanent Fund deal with other common objections to this austere but logical structure.
Henry George
Sweden
Henry George argued that increases in property prices have the impact of reducing wages as low as possible. He also argued that property values increase due to society. While a piece of land in Central London is worth much more than equivalent land in a remote area, the increase in value is due to society creating London, not due to the acts of the professional property manager or the owner. Henry George argued that a land value tax would compensate society for its contribution, while reducing incentives for keeping land idle.
In a similar vein, Dag Detter, the former president of Statsföretag, a Swedish government holding company and national wealth fund, created to centralize and consolidate state ownership of public commercial assets, argues that there are many idle assets on government balance sheets that if better utilised can conservatively provide $2.7 trillion a year. In fact, it turns out that most governments do not even know what real estate assets they own.
Norway
In the public sphere, Norway’s management of its North Sea oil endowment, in particular its rule of saving all the proceeds from selling its oil in an intergenerational fund, is considered one of the leading examples for nations to emulate. There is an interesting back story. Norway separated from Sweden in 1905. One of the first issues was to deal with hydro power plants that had just been set up by foreign companies. The then Minister for Justice, Johan Castberg, was influenced by Henry George and the US progressive movement (usually thought to start with the publication of Henry George’s Progress and Poverty in 1879). He put in place laws that permitted the hydro power plants to run, but that they would revert to public ownership after 60 years. Today, this is called a BOT – Build-Operate-Transfer.
The laws were called “waterfall” laws. The name actually refers to the idea that the hydro plants “fall back” to public ownership, the legal doctrine of escheat. There is also a connection to Intellectual Property rights regimes, where the IP reverts to public ownership after a period of time. Conceptually, this seems to indicate that private ownership of property is at the sufferance of the commoners, and all private property could be required to revert to the commons over time.
Returning to Norway. These hydro plants were returning to public ownership in the late 1960s. Norway’s first oil field, Ekofisk, was discovered in 1969, with this experience fresh. Apparently, this influenced a number of aspects of how Norway managed its oil for the benefit of the people first but in partnership with private enterprise.
Singapore
Karl suggest that the fund corpus be managed such that it grows and we leave a bequest for future generations. This is something that TFWN supports as well. Temasek, one of Singapore’s two large SWFs, follows a more challenging rule that its corpus must remain constant as a share of Singapore GDP. In effect, this implies reinvesting not just to keep pace with inflation, but to keep pace with the growth of the economy. Consequentially, only the return in excess of the economy growth rate can be distributed. This rule has the effect of keeping the endowment proportionate to the overall economy. If the rule of distributing income above inflation is followed, the endowment would remain static while private property would increase, making the endowment less and less relevant. As a corollary, it also puts a very high hurdle rate for investments from the fund. It is worth noting that Singapore’s model for management of its land (90% still in public ownership, 80% living in public housing) fits well with the ideas of Henry George. And interestingly, Singapore also occasionally pays a bonus to its citizen’s when the budget is in surplus.
Framing is crucial
Karl’s article contains a couple of seemingly minor terminology issues that actually have very significant consequences.
Erroneous government accounting incentivizes extraction
There is an important framing error in the use of terms such as “windfall revenue”, “income” or “earning” in connection with the proceeds from selling oil. Selling the crop of the family farm generates revenue. However, the proceeds from selling the family farm is capital, not revenue. The use of “windfall revenue” hides the true nature of the oil sale. The origins are in government accounting and reporting. Governments worldwide, following IMF’s Global Financial Statistics Manual 2014, erroneously treat the proceeds of selling their shared mineral endowment as “revenue”. More extraction = more revenue = good. Hence the enthusiasm to open the Arctic Refuge to oil exploration and the opening of Pebble mine in Bristol Bay, both in Alaska.
If minerals are seen as a shared inheritance, then different questions arise. Why is the mineral endowment being sold instead of keeping them for the use of future generations (who may have less environmentally destructive practices)? Why now? Will Alaska achieve zero loss or will some of the value be captured by the extractive companies by changing terms in their favor through political contributions, lobbying and bribes?
As Karl has pointed out, it is apparent that Alaska is selling its oil for lower than its true value. (Note that the losses due to under-recovery of the oil value is effectively a per head tax on inherited wealth – the value of the endowment reduces and everyone loses equally.) Proper accounting would require these losses to be made good. Seen clearly, more extraction of this nature = larger losses = bad.
Further questions arise. Will the entire proceeds be saved in the Alaska Permanent Fund? Will the only distribution of the income be through the Permanent Fund Dividend? Nothing less will ensure that future generations receive their rightful inheritance.
As Karl points out, Alaska saves less than 20% of the proceeds from selling their oil wealth in their Permanent Fund. And recently, a bill has been enacted providing for the use by government of a part of the income of the fund. They are consuming their shared mineral inheritance, cheating all future generations of Alaskans. If ordinary Alaskans understood this, surely both the Arctic Refuge and the Pebble mine decisions would be questioned.
What should be called a tax?
A related important framing issue plays an important role in the Alaskan struggle to protect their Permanent Fund and Dividend. Revenues, income and earnings imply something has been provided in exchange. Taxes are unrequited payments, ie, payments without any directly reciprocal consideration. Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge is signed by most US Republicans and requires voting against any new taxes or tax increases. As a consequence, elected Republicans only vote for tax reductions.
Alaska has four broad choices in balancing its budget: (a) reducing spending, (b) reducing its losses from selling its oil (though ideally this should go to the Fund), (c) imposing an income tax or increasing the sales tax rate, and finally (d) diverting the income of the Permanent Fund to balance the budget.
As we have seen, income and sales taxes are opposed. The consideration for selling oil is often called an “oil tax”. However, calling them a tax means Republicans adamantly oppose increases, even when all evidence points to massive unrecognized losses. Any diversion of the PF earnings to the budget is in effect a per head tax (or a negative basic income). But since the diversion to the budget isn’t called a tax, Republicans are happy to support it. So the only options seem to be to cut spending or divert the Permanent Fund earnings.
If the terminology changed – we used “price for selling our oil endowment” instead of “oil taxes”, and “a per head tax” instead of an unremarked budget appropriation, then incentives for the Republican politicians change. Since spending cuts alone cannot balance the budget, increasing the price of the oil (ideally it should all go to the Permanent Fund) or explicitly imposing a tax are the only feasible options.
All of this is hidden by the terminology we use, underpinned by the error in government accounting. The IMF must amend its GFSM 2014 to treat the proceeds of selling mineral wealth as capital received in exchange, not “revenue”. And every single individual must change the terminology used to reflect the correct situation. Without this, the incentives to extract and consume our natural resource endowment will inevitably lead to civilization collapse, perhaps even human extinction.
Conclusion
The idea of a people’s endowment is extremely powerful. It hides behind the success of nations such as Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It is important that ordinary people share in the benefits of the endowment to ensure its protection. Unfortunately, even the language we use, underpinned by a crucial accounting error, is a significant contributor to the increasingly likely end of our civilization.
About the Author
Rahul Basu is the Research Director of Goa Foundation, an environmental NGO in India. The Future We Need is a global movement asking for natural resources to be viewed as a shared inheritance we hold as custodians for future generations. This work is based on the practical work of the Goa Foundation. Whose Mine Is It Anyway is a campaign to make government finances and national income statistics treat mining as the sale of minerals. Read Mitigating the Resource Curse by improving Government Accounting and Government Accounting and the Resource Curse – Response to FAQs. IPSASB has started on a new International Public Sector Accounting Standard for natural resources. The Goenchi Mati Movement is advocating these principles for all mining in Goa, India. A joint campaign has successfully asked for these principles to be part of India’s National Mineral Policy.
by Karl Widerquist | Sep 6, 2019 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This page contains a list of links to free versions of pretty much everything I’ve ever written. Free versions are possible because most publishers allow authors to post early versions of their publications on their personal website. Where the published version is free, I’ve tried to include a link to it, but otherwise, the links below are to the early versions on my “Selected Works” webpage.
The early versions are usually the last version I wrote before sending it to the publisher. That means they usually lack copyediting, typesetting, and proofreading. They’re going to contain mistakes that aren’t in the final version. Maybe some really dumb mistakes. But otherwise, they should be good approximations of the works I eventually published.
The reason some things are missing is that it’s a hassle to post everything. If you want something that’s missing please contact me at Karl@Widerquist.com.
According to Google Scholar, my academic publications were cited 1,417 times by July 28, 2020.
My “Selected Works” website has free versions of most of my publications. My Biography, from December 3, 2016, is on BasicIncome.org.
Forthcoming Books
- Karl Widerquist and Grant McCall. 2020. The Prehistory of Private Property: Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy, Book 2, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming
- Karl Widerquist. Universal Basic Income: Essential Knowledge, Boston: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press
- Michael Anthony Lewis and Karl Widerquist, Economics for Social Workers: Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press (the First Edition, 2002, is available from Columbia University Press)
Published Books
- Karl Widerquist, A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments for Researchers, Policymakers, and Citizens, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, December 2018
- Karl Widerquist and Grant McCall, 2017. Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
- Karl Widerquist, Jose Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.), 2013. Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Karl Widerquist, March 2013. Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
- Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) 2012. Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform around the World, New York: Palgrave Macmillan
- Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) 2012. Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model, New York: Palgrave Macmillan
- Karl Widerquist, Michael Anthony Lewis, and Steven Pressman (eds.), 2005. The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guhttps://works.bepress.com/widerquist/107/download/arantee, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate
- Michael Anthony Lewis and Karl Widerquist, 2002. Economics for Social Workers: The Application of Economic Theory to Social Policy and the Human Services, New York: Columbia University Press
Working papers
- Georg Arndt and Karl Widerquist, 2019, “The Cost of Basic Income in the United Kingdom: A Microsimulation Analysis,” In progress.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- Georg Arndt and Karl Widerquist, 2019, “Deceptively Simple: The Uselessness of Gross Cost in the Cost-Benefit Analysis of Universal Basic Income,” Maine Policy Review, November
- Karl Widerquist, 2019, “The Pursuit of Accord: Toward a Theory of Justice With a Second-Best Approach to the Insider-Outsider Problem,” Raisons Politiques 73 (1), 61-82
- Jean-Fabien Spitz, Hillel Steiner, Philippe Van Parijs and Karl Widerquist, 2019, “Why Private Property?” Raisons Politiques 73 (1), 119-131
- Karl Widerquist, 2018, “The Devil’s in the Caveats: A Brief Discussion of the Difficulties of Basic Income Experiments,” CESifo Forum 19 (3), September, 30-35
- Karl Widerquist, 2017, “The Cost of Basic Income: Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations,” Basic Income Studies 12 (2), December
- Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall, 2015. “Myths about the State of Nature and the Reality of Stateless Societies.” Analyse & Kritik 37 (2), August, 233-257
- Karl Widerquist, 2015. “The Piketty Observation Against the Institutional Background: How natural is this natural tendency and what can we do about it?” Basic Income Studies 10 (1), June, 83-90
- Grant S. McCall and Karl Widerquist, 2015. “The Evolution of Equality: Rethinking Variability and Egalitarianism Among Modern Forager Societies.” Ethnoarchaeology 7 (1) March: 21 – 44
- Karl Widerquist, 2010. “How the Sufficiency Minimum Becomes a Social Maximum,” Utilitas 22 (4): 474-480
- Karl Widerquist, 2010. “Lockean Theories of Property: Justifications for Unilateral Appropriation,” Public Reason 2 (3): 3-26
- Karl Widerquist, 2010. “the Physical Basis of Voluntary Trade,” Human Rights Review 11 (1): 83-103
- Karl Widerquist, 2009. “A Dilemma for Libertarianism,” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 8 (1): 43-72
- Karl Widerquist, 2008. “Problems with Wage Subsidies: Phelps’s economic discipline and undisciplined economics” International Journal of Green Economics 2 (3): 329-339
- Karl Widerquist, “The Bottom Line in a Basic Income Experiment” Basic Income Studies 1 (2): 1-5
- Karl Widerquist, 2006. “Who Exploits Who?” Political Studies 54 (3): 444-464
- Karl Widerquist and Michael A. Lewis, 2006. “The Basic Income Guarantee and the Goals of Equality, Efficiency, and Environmentalism,” International Journal of Environment, Workplace and Employment 2 (1): 21-43. (Revised version published in Environment and Employment: A Reconciliation, Philip Lawn (Ed.) London: Routledge, pp. 163-183)
- Karl Widerquist, “A Failure to Communicate: What (if Anything) Can We Learn From the Negative Income Tax Experiments?” the Journal of Socio-Economics 34 (1): 49–81
- Karl Widerquist, 2003. “Public Choice and Altruism,” the Eastern Economic Journal 29 (3): 277-278
- Karl Widerquist, 2001. “Perspectives on the Guaranteed Income, Part II” the Journal of Economic Issues 35 (4): 1019-1030
- Karl Widerquist, 2001. “Perspectives on the Guaranteed Income, Part I” the Journal of Economic Issues 35 (3): 749–757
- Karl Widerquist, 1999. “Reciprocity and the Guaranteed Income” Politics and Society, 33 (3): 386–401
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters
- Karl Widerquist, forthcoming, “The Negative Income Tax Experiments of the 1970s,” the Palgrave International Handbook of Basic Income. Malcolm Torry (editor). New York: Palgrave-Macmillan
- Karl Widerquist, forthcoming, “Three Waves of Basic Income Support,” the Palgrave International Handbook of Basic Income. Malcolm Torry (editor). New York: Palgrave-Macmillan
- Karl Widerquist, March 2018, “My Own Private Basic Income.” In Amy Downes and Stewart Lansley (eds.) It’s Basic Income: the Global Debate, Bristol, UK: Policy Press, an Imprint of the University of Bristol Press, pp. 48-53. Also published in OpenDemocracy, June 27, 2017 (more than 47,000 downloads)
- Karl Widerquist, December 22, 2016. “The People’s Endowment.” In Axel Gosseries and Inigo Gonzalez (eds.) Institutions for Future Generations, Oxford University Press, pp. 312-330
- Karl Widerquist, September 26, 2013, “The Basic Income Grant as Social Safety Net for Namibia: Experience and lessons from around the world,” in Social safety nets in Namibia: Assessing current programmes and future options, Research Department of the Bank of Namibia (editor), Windhoek, Namibia: Bank of Namibia, pp. 43-67
- Karl Widerquist, March 31, 2013. “Is Basic Income Still Worth Talking About?” in The Economics of Inequality, Poverty, and Discrimination in the 21st Century Volume II, Robert S Rycroft (ed.) Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 568-584
- Karl Widerquist and Allan Sheahen, September 3, 2012. “The Basic Income Guarantee in the United States: Past Experience, Current Proposals,” in Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of Reform, Matthew Murray and Carole Pateman (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11-32
- Karl Widerquist, 2012. “Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Basic Income in Practice,” Democratic Imperatives: Innovations in Rights, Participation, and Economic Citizenship. Report of the Task Force on Democracy, Economic Security, and Social Justice in a Volatile Word, American Political Science Association (ed.). Washington, DC: The American Political Science Association (April), p. 64
- Karl Widerquist, 2011. “Why we Demand an Unconditional Basic Income: the ECSO freedom case,” in Arguing about Justice: Essays for Philippe Van Parijs, Axel Gosseries and Yannick Vanderborght (eds.) Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Presses universitaires de Louvain, pp. 387-394
- Karl Widerquist, 2009. “Libertarianism,” in the International Encyclopedia of Public Policy: Governance in a Global Age, Volume 3, Phillip O’Hara (Ed.) Perth: GPERU, pp. 338-350
- Karl Widerquist, 2008. “An Introduction to Citizens Capital Accounts,” in Social Aspects of Green Economics, Miriam Kennet (ed.) Oxford: Green Economics Institute, pp. 79-80.
- Robert Levine, Harold Watts, Robinson Hollister, Walter Williams, Alice O’Connor, and Karl Widerquist, 2005. “A Retrospective on the Negative Income Tax Experiments: Looking Back at the Most Innovative Field Studies in Social Policy,” in The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee, Karl Widerquist, Michael A. Lewis, and Steven Pressman (eds.) Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, pp. 95-106.
- Karl Widerquist, 2005. “Does She Exploit or Doesn’t She?” in The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee, Karl Widerquist, Michael A. Lewis, and Steven Pressman (eds.), Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005, pp. 138-162
- Karl Widerquist, 2004. “The Labour Market Findings of the Negative Income Tax Experiments and Their Effects on Policy and Public Opinion,” in Promoting Income Security as a Right: Europe and North America, Guy Standing (ed.), London, Anthem Press, pp. 497-537
Non-Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Including Book Chapters and Journal Articles
- Karl Widerquist, 2013. “Reciprocity and Exploitation,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Jose A. Noguera and Karl Widerquist, 2013. “Basic Income as a Post-Productivist Policy,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Yannick Vanderborght, José A. Noguera, and Karl Widerquist, 2013. “Politics,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Karl Widerquist, Yannick Vanderborght, and José A. Noguera, 2013. “The Idea of an Unconditional Income for Everyone,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, and Yannick Vanderborght, 2013. “The Implementation of Basic Income,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Karl Widerquist, 2013. “Theories of Justice and Basic Income,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Yannick Vanderborght and Karl Widerquist, 2013. “The Feminist Response to Basic Income,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Karl Widerquist, 2013. “Freedom and Basic Income,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, and Yannick Vanderborght, 2013. “The Economics of Basic Income,” in Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research, Karl Widerquist, José A. Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (eds.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
- Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard, 2012. “The Alaska Model as a Menu of Options,” in Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform Around the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 243-251
- Karl Widerquist, 2012.“Reply to Comments,” in Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform Around the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 233-240
- Karl Widerquist, 2012. “Citizens’ Capital Accounts: A Proposal,” in Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform Around the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 183-203
- Karl Widerquist, 2012. “Exporting the Alaska Model to Alaska: How Big Could the Permanent Fund Be if the State Really Tried? And Can a Larger Fund Insulate an Oil-Exporter from the End of the Boom?” in Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform Around the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 169-180
- Karl Widerquist, 2012. “A Permanent Endowment for the United States,” in Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform Around the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 163-167
- Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard, 2012. “Critical Reflections on the Future of Alaska’s Permanent Fund and Dividend,” in Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 115-122
- Michael W. Howard and Karl Widerquist, 2012. “Why Link Basic Income to Resource Taxation?” in Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 205-220
- Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard, 2012. “Lessons from the Alaska Model,” in Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 221-228
- Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard, 2012. “Exporting an Idea,” in Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform Around the World, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 3-14
- Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard, 2012. “Success in Alaska,” in Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its Suitability as a Model, Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 3-15
- Karl Widerquist and Jurgen De Wispelaere, 2006. “Launching a Basic Income Journal” Basic Income Studies 1 (1): 1-6
- Michael Lewis, Steven Pressman & Karl Widerquist, 2005. “The basic income guarantee and social economics,” The Review of Social Economy 63 (4): 587-593. (Revised version published as “An introduction to the Basic Income Guarantee” in The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee, Widerquist, Lewis, Pressman (eds.), Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005)
- Karl Widerquist, 2005. “Discussion” Time for Land Value Tax? Dominic Maxwell and Anthony Vigor (eds.) London: Institute for Public Policy Research, pp. 60-64
- Karl Widerquist, 2005. “Introduction,” The Journal of Socio-Economics 34 (1): 1–2
Karl Widerquist and Michael Howard, coeditors of “Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend: Examining its suitability as a model”
Book Reviews
- Karl Widerquist, 2019, “Book Review – The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future,” Delphi – Interdisciplinary Review of Emerging Technologies 2, Issue 1, 59 – 60
- Karl Widerquist, 2014, “Review of Marshall Brain: Manna: Two Visions of Humanity’s Future.” Basic Income News:org
- Karl Widerquist, 2014, “Review of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies.” Basic Income News:org
- Karl Widerquist 2011 “Review Essay: Two Memoirs Tell the History of the Alaska Dividend,” Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2010. “Review of The Street Porter and the Philosopher: Conversations on Analytical Egalitarianism,” Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy (eds.),” the Eastern Economic Journal 36 (2): 277-278
- Karl Widerquist, 2010. “Review of In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Charles Murray,” Review of Political Economy 22 (1): 170-174
- Karl Widerquist, 2009. “Review of Natural Justice, Ken Binmore,” Utilitas 21 (4): pp. 529-532
- Karl Widerquist, 2009. “Jeremy Waldron’s Legal Philosophy and the Basic Income Debate, comment on three books by Jeremy Waldron,” Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2009. “Review of Just Distribution: Rawlsian Liberalism and the Politics of Basic Income, Simon Birnbaum,” Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2008. “Review of The Failed Welfare Revolution: America’s Struggle over Guaranteed Income Policy, Brian Steensland,” Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2007. “Review of the Ethics of Stakeholding, Keith Dowding, Jurgen De Wispelaere, and Stuart White,” the Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2005. “Review of Libertarianism Without Inequality, Michael Otsuka,” the Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2004. “Review of Work Behavior of the World’s Poor: Theory Evidence and Policy, Mohammed Sharif,” the Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2004. “Review of The Civic Minimum, Stuart White,” the Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2004. “Review of Real Libertarianism Assessed, Andrew Reeve and Andrew Williams (eds.),” the Citizens Income Newsletter (1)
- Karl Widerquist, 2004. “Review of Economics as Religion: from Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond, Robert H. Nelson,” the Eastern Economic Journal 30 (1): 153-155
- Karl Widerquist, 2001. “Review of The Political Economy of Inequality, Ackerman, Goodwin, Dougherty, and Gallagher (eds.),” the Journal of Economic Issues 35 (4): 1054-1056
Opinions, Editorials, and interviews (selected)
- Karl Widerquist, “America is in crisis. We need universal basic income now [The usual arguments against UBI don’t apply to the Emergency UBI],” the Guardian, 20 Mar 2020
- Karl Widerquist, “End the Threat of Economic Destitution Now,” Open Democracy, 17 September 2019
- Karl Widerquist, “The Growth of the Australian Basic Income Movement,” in Implementing a Basic Income in Australia: Pathways Forward, Elise Klein, Jennifer Mays, and Tim Dunlop (eds.) New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
- Karl Widerquist, “Basic Income’s Third Wave,” OpenDemocracy, October 18, 2017
- Karl Widerquist, “The Alaska Model: a citizen’s income in practice,” Our Kingdom, Democratic Wealth: building a citizens’ economy. 24 April 2013
- Karl Widerquist “Commentary: Let’s change the way Alaska Permanent Fund pays dividends,” the Alaska Dispatch, December 5, 2012
- Karl Widerquist “Interesting Times Ahead for Alaska Permanent Fund,” the Alaska Dispatch, June 3, 2012
- Karl Widerquist “How Alaska Can Avoid the Third-Stage Resource Curse,” the Alaska Dispatch, February 27, 2012
- Karl Widerquist “Viewpoint: Lessons of the Alaska Dividend,” Citizens Income Newsletter, Issue 3, 2010
- Karl Widerquist “A BIG Idea: A Minimum Income Guarantee,” Multinational Monitor, Volume 30, No. 3, May/Jun 2009
- Karl Widerquist “Viewpoint: What Does the Stone Age Have to Do With Us?” Citizens Income Newsletter, Issue 3, 2008
- Karl Widerquist “Conference Report: The Eleventh BIEN Congress” Citizens Income Newsletter Issue 2, 2007
- Karl Widerquist “Re-Reading Keynes: Economic Possibilities of Our Grandparents” Dissent, Winter 2006
- Karl Widerquist “The Basic Income Guarantee,” Synthesis/Regeneration 26, Fall 2001
- Karl Widerquist “The Money-Making Ethic,” Chronogram Magazine, New Paltz, NY, January 1999
- Karl Widerquist “Blaming the Worker,” Chronogram Magazine, January 1998
Translations
- Karl Widerquist & Michael W. Howard, “作为备选方案的阿拉斯加模式 [The Alaska Model as a Menu of Options]” 实验主义治理 [Experimental Governance], translated by Cheng Furui, September 2015
- Karl Widerquist, “两本回忆录讲述阿拉斯加社会分红的历史 [Two Memoirs Tell the History of the Alaska Dividend]” 实验主义治理 [Experimental Governance], translated by Cheng Furui, August 2015
- Karl Widerquist, “基本收入与作为“说不”的权力的自由 [Freedom as the power to say no]” 实验主义治理 [Experimental Governance], translated by Gao Zhen, July 2015
- Karl Widerquist “Predicciones de Keynes: ‘Las posibilidades económicas de nuestros nietros’ Una visión restrospectiva” Ciudadanos: Critica Política y Propuesta Año 6, No. 10 El Futuro (Invierno de 2006). Traducido por José Villadeamigo, pp. 55-60 de “Re-Reading Keynes” Dissent
Legislation
“Tax Cut for the Rest of Us Act” of 2006. House Resolution 5257, introduced into the 109th Congress on May 2, 2006 was based entirely on: Karl Widerquist and Al Sheahen, “A Proposal to Transform the Standard Deduction into a Refundable Tax Credit” USBIG Discussion Paper No. 93, August 2004
