The news is written by Chen Xixi and modified by Furui cheng
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In the ‘International Basic Income Week’, we three sophomores in CUPL (China University of Political Science and Law) organized an online feature academic report about basic income with Furui Cheng, our academic tutor, on September 13, 2020. The participants included some juniors and seniors, and we are all from financial department of the Business School.
The seminar has two main agendas: the first is a presentation of one very good chapter about Social Dividend of Alaska ‘How Alaska helped Staunch be fouling by mismanaged oil wealth: a lesson for other oil rich nations’ in Jay Hammond’s autobiography by Yu Yang, Huang Xinyi, and Chen Xixi; the second is free comments and discussion of the social dividend governance mechanism. Here are the details of the seminar.
Chen Xixi:
Our report has mainly three aspects: the first part is the background, the second part is the operating mechanism, and the third part is some enlightenment for other countries.
Background 1: Alaska is a state rich in natural resources. In the beginning, oil producers mainly focused on some infrastructure projects, which had greatly expanded domestic spending and so caused inflation to soar and left a mountain of debt. So even though Alaska was rich in resources, the life of the poor did not improve at that time.
Background 2: Alaskan fishermen were dissatisfied with the monopoly that the Seattle tycoons actually enjoyed. When they used fishing gear, because this fishing monopoly benefited a few beneficiaries but sacrificed the interests of many people. Therefore, at that time, many fishermen had a very bad life and lacked services. So, there was a proposal to ban fishing nets, but it was overturned because of various unconstitutionality.
A report slide about several failed practices before the permanent fund
Background 3: The bumpy process of the permanent fund project. The first was that a tax system with the Bristol Bay Company as the main concept was proposed at that time. The main content of such a tax system was to deposit taxes in a relatively conservatively managed investment account, and then distributed a new dividend stock to residents every year. But in the end this tax system ended in failure.
Immediately after, two new regulations were proposed for use tax and the abolition of residential business tax. This was considered a transitional measure to compensate fishermen for their losses. Then such a new regulation was approved because it met the expectations of the people. Then, once again proposed to the legislature a tax system with the Bristol Bay Company as the main concept. But it still ended in failure.
And the country did not follow the concept of fair share distribution proposed by Bristol Bay Company to form a single investment portfolio, but formed companies in more than 200 villages and about 14 regions. Besides, the board of directors was composed of local leaders. This made many lawyers and people who made high salaries in the company happy. In the end, many companies were also on the verge of bankruptcy due to the lack of large capital investment, nepotism and rural policies. This model eventually collapsed. In fact, the failure of this model was mainly because his politics was not separated from the economy and so an independent financial operation system was not formed.
Then they further proposed a fair tax system. Its content was to first determine the state’s per capital property value, and then in this community, if there are some people whose revenue generated by the tax are less than they should be, the state will provide funds for the difference. Conversely, if the income generated by the resident’s 3% tax exceeds the excess income, the excess income will be owned by the state. According to such a fair tax system, all places would be levied the same tax, which meant that the impact on everyone is the same, whether it was the poor or the rich. However, such a fair taxation system eventually met with opposition.
Then, they passed the so-called Alaska permanent fund. It just cut the proposed 50% of the oil lease bonus, royalties and severance payment to 25%, and the severance payment, which accounted for about half of the oil wealth income, was canceled and flowed into the general fund instead. In this way, there was no way to form permanent financial assets. This was also the initial establishment of an Alaska permanent fund. Then they proposed dividend plan and annuity account. The main content of these two proposals was to pay dividends according to the length of residence of the residents. They were approved.
Finally, in 1980, the national government allocated funds to establish the Alaska State Permanent Fund. The bill also proposed that the board of directors is independently responsible for the operation of the permanent fund. In 1982, the Alaska State Legislature also passed a resource fund dividend plan, and then such a permanent fund was formally established.
Yu Yang:
Next, I will talk about the main ideas and governance mechanisms of the Alaska Permanent Fund.
Its main idea is to avoid excessive waste of resources by establishing a permanent fund. Extract a portion of the income from oil proceeds to the descendants of Alaskans, and convert some of the oil income into permanent and sustainable financial assets.
Then keep resource revenue away from politicians to prevent politicians from wasting resource revenue on government operations and investment projects.
Beginning in 1976, Alaska’s referendum decided to set up a permanent fund to allocate at least 25% of the state’s oil resources and related income to the permanent fund, stipulating that the legislative department has full power to dispose of the income of the permanent fund, but the capital of the permanent fund, the legal department must keep it intact.
Then, in 1978, the legislature decided to establish two corporate entities, the Alaska Enterprise Investment Corporation and the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. The Alaska Enterprise Investment Corporation mainly creates short-term benefits for Alaskan citizens and provides financing support for small and medium-sized production-oriented private enterprises and community development projects. Alaska permanent fund company has a large amount of income into the account, but the type of investment it can be given strict restrictions, that is, the prudent investment rules of the common law are used to guide investment. Then it was stipulated in the 1980 bill that 50% of the income from the leasing of mineral resources should be invested in the fund.
The establishment of a permanent constitutional amendment stipulates that at least 25% of the royalties from all natural resource income owned by the state shall be placed in the fund, and the fund shall only be used for investments that can bring asset returns. The implementation of the withdrawal rules means approximately 10% of oil revenue is placed in the fund, and other insignificant mineral revenues are also included. In addition to the royalty savings provided by the constitutional amendments, the size of the fund also increases with legal appropriations. The annual savings make up for the depreciation of the true value of the fund due to the effect of inflation.
Finally, the management of the fund belongs to an independent company, led by a carefully calculated board of directors, and is focused on maximizing the financial returns of the fund. The company’s operations are independent of state revenues and have not been involved in any disputes involving the optimal use of funds. The decision is controlled by the legislature.
The then Governor of Alaska, Jay Hammond, suggested that the annual income of the fund should be distributed according to the requirements of an Alaska Corporate Plan. Citizens of Alaska can enjoy the income of the fund every year. The distribution standard depends on the residence period of Alaska up to 25 years. Residents who live for one year can enjoy a share, and residents who live for two years can Get two shares, and so on. Half of the income of the Alaska Fund is equally distributed to each resident each year. In order to make the program sustainable, the Alaska permanent fund dividend is paid in the form of ordinary income rather than fund income. Citizens of Alaska can get a corresponding share from the permanent fund dividend distribution every year. This fund is composed of public oil revenues. As the fund appreciates, the scale of annual dividends also increases.
Huang Xinyi:
If other countries want to apply this model of Alaska, the government should consider the following three questions according to its own situation. One is whether the government has to decide whether to collect rents on privatized resources, and the second is whether the government has to decide whether to create a permanent fund. Third, the government has to decide whether to distribute dividends and what proportion of the proceeds will be used for dividends.
Next, I will take Iraq as an example to talk about how to extend the permanent fund to other countries. Historically, every revolution in Russia, China, France, and the United States was triggered by the gap between the rich and the poor. Take Iraq as an example Under Saddam’s rule, the upper-class lives are rich, the bottom lives are dirty, oil wealth makes a few people fat, but most people are still starving. Transferring part of the country’s oil wealth to citizens and reducing the gap between rich and poor may help prevent further chaos.
What should Iraq do? Alaska’s permanent fund has some major shortcomings, and Iraq should avoid repeating the same mistakes. For example, the dividend plan of Alaska failed to deposit all the state government income that Alaskans received from oil wealth into the people’s account, and did not use their income for other purposes than dividends. Instead, most of it went to the state government. When oil prices rose, the state government succumbed to the interim bill to abolish income taxes and squandered oil revenues. Therefore, the Alaska government today is facing a serious crisis and deficit gap. Iraq should handle this income more appropriately and deposit it in the people’s account or other purposes, instead of spending it lavishly by the government.
How should China learn from the Alaska permanent fund model? China’s resource-abundant regions can establish a distribution model similar to fund management to effectively manage resource returns, so that they can continue to increase in value. Fund income can be managed through investment companies for investment management, which can increase the value of the fund and turn the fund into a sustainable financial asset. The supervisory body of the fund can be supervised by another financial institution or such as the central bank. The account of fund income is open to residents of resource-based areas by investment companies on a regular basis.
The proceeds of this resource fund can be used for the following investments. The first is the investment in human capital, through fund income to increase the level of human capital investment, promote the accumulation of human capital, increase the investment in education funds in resource-based areas, and cultivate technical and professional talents. Increase the supply of human capital and attract and retain senior talents through preferential conditions. The second is investment in technological innovation. Resource-based regions have a single industrial structure, are highly dependent on resources, and have relatively weak technological innovation capabilities. Fund proceeds are used to support technological innovation in resource-based regions. The third is the investment in urban infrastructure, using fund proceeds to invest in infrastructure in resource-based areas, especially urban infrastructure. The last is to support the development of private enterprises. Fund proceeds are used for investment in private enterprises in resource-based areas, encourage and support the establishment of private enterprises, and implement preferential policies for private enterprises.
In fact, the Alaska dividend model has many applications in various countries. I think the social dividend practice in Alaska has a general enlightening significance for the management of public resources. In fact, Venezuela, Brazil, South Africa, Israel and New Mexico in the United States have all advocated the establishment of social dividend like Alaska. Europe has a stronger movement to promote social dividends, which they like to call “basic income.”. The British government has officially run the children’s trust fund in 2004 to establish a capital account for every child born after January 1, 2004. In fact, many rural areas in China have implemented the community stock cooperation system for many years, which is the “local social dividend” based on the value-added income of collective land. In fact, the system conditions for implementing social dividend in China are more favorable than those in many countries, because we have a large proportion of public assets, and we do not need to make many complicated tax designs like other countries.
Furui Cheng:
Alaska’s social dividend practice is very important, not only because it is so far the only real human social policy on the way, not just as an experiment, but has been implemented for almost 40 years! Its implication to future public policy and the use of public resources may have similar importance to land revolution.
Why establish a social dividend fund? And how? What is the difference between this kind of funds and others in the aspect of governance mechanism? How to ensure the sustainability of the funds? How to decide the priority between Dividend and public services? How to avoid the expropriation of the capital and its revenue by different interest groups? And so on. In the process of answering these questions, we are doing this work in the context of reforms in the political, economic, legal, social and cultural spheres.
As undergraduates, I hope you are aware of the frontier issues, reflect on the classics, and foster the ability to change the status quo.
I was recently asked four questions about Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend, and I think the answers provide a pretty good overview of what people who are interested in UBI need to know about the fund.
1. When was the Alaska policy passed?
The enabling legislation was introduced gradually from 1976 to the early 80s and was altered before it could be it could be introduced because of a court challenge. So, it’s best to focus on when the first dividend was distributed. That was 1982.
2. How many benefits does it provide people?
See this table. Note that it is for every man, woman, and child, so each family receives several times this amount. It usually varies between $1,000 and $2,000 per year. It would be much larger if it hadn’t been for the Governor’s and the legislature’s cuts a few years ago.
3. What was the history behind the policy?
Oil money really began to flow in 1976, just as Governor Jay Hammond took office. He used the power of his office from 1976 to 1982 to make deals with the legislature to create first the fund and then the dividend. The fund idea was popular, but the dividend wasn’t until it was introduced. Hammond had a few allies in the legislature, but it was very much his single-minded pursuit of the dividend that made it happen. He did it because he knew oil revenue would be temporary and he wanted to make sure every Alaskan benefited from it. Mexico, for example, has exported a lot of oil, but it’s hard to say whether the poorest people have benefit from it. All Alaskans–including homeless people–have benefited from Alaska’s oil exports, via the fund.
But the fund and therefore the dividend are about 1/8 to 1/4 the size Hammond wanted. So, the dividend could be 8 times what it has been in the table, and it could be even larger without the recent cuts. Imagine that—$4,000 to perhaps $12,000 year for every man, woman, and child.
Almost as soon as it was introduced it became the most popular government policy in Alaska, and was considered untouchable until about 4 years ago when Alaska’s oil revenue began to collapse, and politicians who had failed to plan for that day began raiding the fund to avoid reintroducing the state income tax or raising other taxes. Had they kept the income tax, and saved all or most of their oil money–as Hammond wanted–the state wouldn’t face a fiscal crisis as oil revenue declines, and they’d feel less temped to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.
4. Has it proved to be effective?
Yes, if an impoverished family of four receives $8,000, that’s not enough to live on for a year, but it’s enough to make an enormous difference. In the first 20 or 30 year of the program, Alaska was one of the most economically equal states and the growing PDF was probably one of the reasons. It’s helped Alaska maintain a much lower poverty rate and poverty gap than it would otherwise have. -Karl Widerquist, on my front porch in New Orleans, Louisianan, 20 August 20, 2020
For more information about the fund see these two articles:
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
Videos of all the plenary sessions are available on youtube. Abstracts of all the concurrent sessions are available here. Full papers and slides of some presentations are available below.
This table contains the papers uploaded to the congress website prior to the congress. If other authors submit their papers then they will be added to this list.
Videos are available of many of the congress sessions. Click here to see them.
BIEN 2016, Seoul
The Proceedings of the 2016 congress are contained in a single document, in which can be found plenary session addresses and parallel session papers. Click here to download the document.
Toward a renovation of economic circulation and institutionsMorley-Fletcher, Edwin (IT) Opening AddressOzanira da Silva e Silva, Maria (BRA) The Minimum Income as a Policy for Increasing Child Education in BrazilPelzer, Helmut (GE) Funding of an Unconditional Basic Income in Germany via a Modified Tax/Transfer SystemPioch, Roswitha (GE) The bottom line of the welfare state in Germany and the NetherlandsQuilley, Steven (UK) Sustainable Funding of Basic Income: Environment, Citizenship & Community, and a Trajectory for Basic Income Politics in Europe (published in Basic Income on the Agenda)
Reynolds, Brigid (IRE), with Sean Healy
From Concept to Green Paper: Putting Basic Income on the Political Agenda (published in Basic Income on the Agenda)
Robeyns, Ingrid (B)
An emancipation fee or hush money? The advantages and disadvantages of a basic income for women’s emancipation and well-being (published in Basic Income on the Agenda)
Roos, Nikolas (NL)
Basic Income and the justice of taxationSalinas, Claudio Caesar (ARG), with Philippe Van Parijs Basic income and its cognates. Puzzling equivalence and unheeded differences between alternative ways of addressing the new social question (published in Basic Income on the Agenda) Scharpf, Fritz (D) Basic Income and Social Europe (published in Basic Income on the Agenda)
Schutz, Robert (US)
More Basic IncomeSerati, M. (IT), with E. Chiappero & F. Silva Basic income: an insidious trap or a fruitful chance for the Italian labour market?Silva, F. (IT) ), with E. Chiappero & M. Serati Basic income: an insidious trap or a fruitful chance for the Italian labour market?Smith, Jeffery (US) From Potlatch to EarthshareStanding, Guy (SWI) Seeking Equality of Security in the Era of GlobalisationTerraz, Isabelle Redistributive Impact of a Basic Income: A Focus on Women’s SituationVan Parijs, Philippe (B), with Claudio Caesar Salinas Basic income and its cognates. Puzzling equivalence and unheeded differences between alternative ways of addressing the new social question (published in Basic Income on the Agenda) Widerquist, Karl (US) Reciprocity and the guaranteed income
An early version of the book, Exporting the Alaska Model, is available for download for the first time. This is possible because most academic publishers allow authors and editors to post early versions of their works on their person websites. A preview, written in 2012, is below. If you’d like to cite or quote it, please refer to the published version:
In recognition of every Alaskan’s share of the ownership of the state’s oil reserves, every year, every Alaskan gets a dividend from the returns of the Alaska Permanent Fund (a sovereign wealth fund comprised of a pool of assets collectively owned by the residents of the state). It was created from royalties the state receives from the oil industry. Each year it pays a dividend to every Alaska resident. In 2008, the dividend reached a high of more than $3200 (including a supplement added from that year’s state budget surplus). That dividend amounted to more than $16,000 for a family of five.
Many other resource-exporting regions around the world have sovereign wealth funds, but only the APF pays a regular dividend to citizens. The APF and the accompanying Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) are actually a combination of resource-management policy and a progressive social policy. As a sovereign wealth fund, it helps to ensure that the state will continue to benefit from its oil long after its reserves are depleted. As a dividend, it helps every single Alaskan make ends meet each year without a bureaucracy to judge them.
The PFD is one of the most popular government programs in the United States. It has helped Alaska attain the highest economic equality of any state in the United States. It has coexisted with, and possibly contributed to, the state’s growing and prosperous economy. Most importantly it has given unconditional cash assistance to needy Alaskans at a time when most states have scaled back aid and increased conditionality.
Cliff Groh
This book argues that the model provided by the combination of the APF and the PFD is worthy of imitation by other states, nations, or regions. Of course, not every country has as much oil as Alaska, but every country has resources. The total value of natural resources (including not only mining, fishing, and forestry but also land value, the broadcast spectrum, the atmosphere, etc.) is surprisingly high even in areas not thought of as being resource rich. The case for taxing natural resources is at least as good, and probably far better than taxing other sources of wealth.
One reason Alaska introduced the APF was that lawmakers realized that oil drilling would give the state a large and temporary revenue windfall. They wanted to extend the period in which that windfall would benefit Alaskans by putting some if it away into a permanent fund. To some extent the PFD was a way to sell ordinary Alaskans on the idea of the APF.
But to some extent the motivation for the APF was to support the PFD. Some of the lawmakers who created the APF, most especially Governor Jay Hammond, were influenced by the movement for what is now known as a “basic income”—a small unconditional income for every citizen to help them meet their basic needs. At the time, the policy was best known as the “guaranteed income” or the “negative income tax.” It was widely discussed by policymakers in the United States in the 1960s and 70s. Hammond had created a similar policy on a local level when he was a mayor of Bristol Bay, and he very much saw the APF as an opportunity to create a guaranteed income. The argument was simple: the oil, by right, belonged to all Alaskans. The PFD was an efficient way to ensure that every Alaskan would benefit from it.
A similar argument can be made for almost any natural resource.
This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to assessing whether the APF is a model to be copied with chapters in the disciplines of economics, philosophy, sociology, history, and social policy studies. It also has chapters written by political activists and practitioners.
Several chapters discuss the history of the APF and similar policies around the world (both resource taxation policies and income support policies). Others chapters discuss the ethics of unconditional cash grants and resource taxes, and how the Alaska mode fits in with recent theoretical models. As mentioned, the PDF is essentially a small basic income—a political proposal that has been widely discussed in political theory literature. Stakeholder grants would replace the yearly basic income with a large, one-time payment when individuals come of age. Resource egalitarianism is the belief that all people should benefit equally from the natural resources of the Earth. Policies like the APF, which link resource taxes to direct redistribution, advance resource egalitarian goals. We discuss what should count as a “resource” for purposes of the standard of “equality of resources,” and how this might be focused on resources that can become the basis of a sovereign wealth fund. A clean atmosphere, for example, is a shared resource that is being depleted by billions of individual polluters.
Several chapters debate whether it is a good idea to link a progressive social policy, such as a cash grant, to an environmental policy, such as a resource tax. One reason to make this link is that resource taxes redistributed as dividends reflect shared ownership claims to the environment. Other reason to do so is that the redistribution of resource tax revenue can compensate people for the cost of moving to less resource-intensive activities. One danger is if the redistribution of resource taxes is seen as a good thing, people might be more willing to accept increased exploitation of natural resources.
The book also discusses possible ways that the model might be altered and improved, including a proposal for Citizens Capital Accounts, which personalize the fund, giving each individual owner, among other things, the power to decide whether to take out regular dividends or let her earnings accrue as a protected investment. Instead of passively receiving a check each year, each citizen have some control over a small portion of the principle and the choice of when and whether to withdraw her available returns.
The book also has country- and region-specific proposals with estimates of what size dividend might be achievable in various places. As criteria for success we consider effects on poverty, effects on inequality, effectiveness in discouraging greenhouse gasses and other forms of pollution (for carbon-based taxes), efficiency, satisfaction of voters, and other factors.
Summary
This book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses employing the Alaska model in circumstances similar to those of Alaska: in wealthy, resource-exporting nations and regions. Part II discusses applications of the model further afield. And Part III discusses a hybrid proposal for an individualized version of Alaska’s fund and dividend.
Michael W. Howard (right) and Karl Widerquist (left) in the rain at the 2017 NABIG Congress in New York
Hamid Tabatabai (chapter 2) begins Part I with a discussion of the second place in the world to introduce a resource dividend: of all places, Iran. Like Alaska, Iran stumbled upon the dividend following a peculiar set of circumstances. For most of its period as a resource-exporting nation, Iran has used its resource wealth to support an inefficient system of commodity subsidies (mostly on gas and oil consumption). Iranian politicians knew that these subsidies had to go, but the policies benefited so many people in such a significant way that the politicians knew they could not eliminate them without a similarly broad-based policy (discussed as the fifth lesson in section 2 above). After lengthy discussions, the policy that emerged was a basic income in the form of a regular resource dividend. The policy is not funded by a permanent resource endowment, but it does employ the other two elements of the Alaska model.
Angela Cummine (chapter 3) looks at the very opposite issue. There are many SWFs in the world today. Some of them are many times larger than the APF. Yet, only the APF pays a dividend. Given the enormous popularity of the PFD, why have no other resource-exporting nations imitated it? Employing information gained from interviews and other sources, Cummine assesses the reasons SWF managers around the world are skeptical about dividends.
Alanna Hartzok (chapter 4) looks back at the Alaska model itself in advance of export. She argues that the APF and PFD embody the idea of socializing the rent of assets that rightfully belong to the people as a whole, but to do this, managers at the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) should take on a strong responsibility toward social investing, and they are not yet living up to that responsibility. Any nation or region wishing to socialize rent on a large or small scale should, therefore, take a look at what the APFC has done right and what it has done wrong.
Rather than looking at employing the Alaska model in other places, Cliff Groh (chapter 5) looks at the future of the Alaska model in Alaska. Although the PFD has a sound permanent endowment in the APF, it is the only part of the Alaska government that has such safe financial footing. Most of Alaska’s state budget is based on current oil export revenues. The volume of Alaskan oil exports has been declining for more than 20 years. So far, increases in the price of oil have more than made up for the decline in the volume of oil exports, but they will not always do so. When oil revenue begins to dry up, there will be enormous pressure on the state government budget, which will also put pressure on the APF and PFD. Groh discusses when this might happen, what it will mean, and what can be done about it.
Gary Flomenhoft begins Part II with a chapter (chapter 6) estimating the potential for a common-asset-based dividend in the “resource-poor” state of Vermont. He shows that even Vermont has many resources that are being given away for free by government to corporations who sell those resources back to the people at higher prices. Flomenhoft estimates how much revenue the state could generate by treating those assets the way Alaska treats its oil. In his low estimate, he finds that Vermont could support a dividend at least as large as Alaska’s; and in his high estimate, he finds that Vermont could support a dividend many times larger—perhaps more than $10,000 a year for every Vermonter. If a resource-poor state such as Vermont can do it, any state or nation can too.
Paul Segal (chapter 7) discusses employing the Alaska model in the poorer nations of the world and discusses the impact on poverty of doing so. He finds that a resource dividend could cut world poverty by more than half, as measured by the World Bank’s poverty rate of US$1.25 per day at purchasing-power-parity.
Jason Hickel (chapter 8) examines the potential impact of the Alaska model on a less developed nation—the newly independent state of South Sudan. Although South Sudan has large oil reserves to draw on, the potential impact of the Alaska model on it is hard to estimate because the state is so new and few good data are available. However, he finds that oil exports have the potential to finance both a substantial dividend and significant infrastructure improvements.
Governor Jay Hammond, “Father of Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend”
Jay Hammond’s contribution (chapter 9) applies the Alaska model to Iraq. Hammond was the fourth governor of the state of Alaska and is justly described as the father of the PFD. He campaigned for the idea long after he left office. His posthumous contribution to this book is a piece he wrote near the end of his life suggesting that a permanent fund and dividend would help ensure that Iraq’s oil revenues were shared by members of all of its diverse communities. This chapter includes a brief introduction by Larry Smith.
Michael W. Howard’s chapter (chapter 10) discusses the cap-and-dividend approach to global warming as a politically viable way of applying the Alaska model at the federal level in the United States. The idea of cap-and-dividend is simple. The government limits the amount of carbon emissions allowed (the cap). It sells the rights to make those emissions to the highest bidder and redistributes the proceeds as a dividend for all citizens.
Widerquist closes Part II with two chapters (chapters 11 and 12). The first examines the possibility for, and potential size of, a permanent common-asset-based endowment for the United States. The second examines the prospects of exporting the Alaska model back home to Alaska to widen and deepen the use of the strategy we call the Alaska model in Alaska itself. Widerquist argues that a fuller use of the Alaska model will strengthen Alaska against the likely eventual decline in resource revenues.
Part III of the book is entirely devoted to the discussion of a proposal by Karl Widerquist to create an individualized version of the permanent fund and dividend approach. Widerquist’s proposal, called Citizens’ Capital Accounts (CCAs) (chapter 13), assigns a portion of the principal of the fund to each individual at birth. They can decide when and whether to draw dividends, but the principal must remain in the fund for future generations. Widerquist argues that CCAs provide more economic security for the money than basic income or other similar proposals, because they allow individuals to keep the returns in their safe investment account until they are needed. Subsequent chapters by Michael W. Howard, Jason Berntsen, Ayelet Banai, and Christopher L. Griffin, Jr. (chapters 14–17) evaluate, criticize, and consider variations of the CCA proposal. In the final chapter of part III (chapter 18), Widerquist responds to criticism.
A new kind of news-documentary interactive presentation has been delivered by Frame, a digital newsmagazine that uses human-centered stories to illuminate key topics in the news. Its latest issue features the Alaska Permanent Fund, named “The Alaska Model”.
The piece tells the story of the creation of Alaska’s universal basic income-style Permanent Fund Dividend and the tense backroom dealings that went into its passage. The story offers a fresh angle — a firsthand account from one of the dividend’s chief architects — delivered in a unique, interactive documentary format.