BIEN | Research Depository

The easiest way to discover material on subjects of interest is always to use the ‘search’ function at the top of each website page. This will find congress papers and also items elsewhere on the website relevant to the search.

The UK’s Citizen’s Basic Income Trust website contains a large amount of research material, which can be accessed on the ‘research and analysis’ page and via the search function to the left of each website page.

Additional research material

Empirical Examples/Studies:

Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend:

• BIEN Archive on the Topic of Alaska: https://basicincome.org/topic/alaska/
• Goldsmith, 2002: Effects of the PFD, and lessons that can be learnt for Basic Income
  https://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/ses/download/docs/gold.pdf
• Goldsmith, 2010: The PFD as a case study for the implementation of BI elsewhere https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/4170
• Piece on Alaska’s PFD and the examination of the underlying concept: Basic Income https://motherboard.vice.com/read/only-state-free-money-alaska
• 6 lessons to be learnt from the PFD https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/karl-widerquist/alaska-model-citizens-income-in-practice
• Insights drawn from the PFD which may inform the UK: https://www.ippr.org/juncture/a-citizens-income-and-wealth-fund-for-the-uk-lessons-from-alaska

“Mincome”: Guaranteed Annual Income Experiment in Manitoba, Canada:

• Forget, 2011: An analysis of Dauphin’s minimum income experiment (note: This was not strictly a Basic Income experiment, although there were significant similarities): https://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf
  Main findings:
• New mothers worked less, choosing to stay at home with their babies.
• Teenagers worked less and were more likely to graduate because they were under less pressure to leave school to support their families.
• Hospital visits dropped 8.5% and there were reduced rates of psychiatric hospitalization & mental illness related consultations with health professions.

• Article on Forget’s findings: https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-mincome-experiment-dauphin
• Transcript of an interview with Forget: https://basicincome.org.uk/2013/08/health-forget-mincome-poverty/
• Forget, E. 2011, The Town with No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment, Canadian Public Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cpp.37.3.283
• Forget, 2012: A policy brief looking at the health effects of a guaranteed annual income and in particular the savings that could be made as a result of a reduced burden on healthcare costs. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/pclc_rpb/vol1/iss3/5/
• Forget, 2013: Further exploring the health effects of a guaranteed income. https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0091743513001928/1-s2.0-S0091743513001928-main.pdf?_tid=1a953a20-5315-11e6-8b11-00000aacb35f&acdnat=1469526259_87175e360534880b52f669ca777f1059
• Hum & Simpson, 2001: Summarises and compares results on effects upon work with earlier US results. Finds that work disincentive effects of BI are modest. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-7121.1993.tb01963.x/epdf
• Hum & Simpson, 2001: Hoping to renew the debate on basic income at the turn of the Century; concluded once again that work disincentives were minimal. https://archive.irpp.org/po/archive/jan01/hum.pdf
• Choudhry & Hum, 2006: Explores how the Mincome experiment indicated that a guaranteed annual income had a stabilizing influence on the participants’ marriages and concludes that such a support programme may make a much needed dent in the cycle of marital dissolution. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/758518991
• Calnitsky & Latner 2015: (There only appears to be access to the abstract online, but it looks again at the impacts on work from the Mincome experiment and shows that whilst there may have been an 11.3% reduction in labour market participation, 30% of that could be attributed to “community context” effects. https://sase.confex.com/sase/2015am/webprogram/Paper2080.html
• David Calnitsky, 2016: An academic article reinvestigating the Mincome experiment. Particularly looks at how a Basic Income reduces the social stigmatization which is usually attached to government assistance/social welfare. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cars.12091/pdf
• Prescott, et. al., 1986: Presenting labour supply estimates for low-income femaile heads of households from Mincome data. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/135175.pdf?_=1469525098590
• News article on the Mincome experiment: https://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/dauphin-canada-cash.html
• An article which looks very favourably upon basic income and the Mincome experiment in Canada as “eliminating poverty”. It also gives positive prospects for the momentum BI is gaining in political spheres: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23/mincome-in-dauphin-manitoba_n_6335682.html
• A podcast about the benefits of Basic Income in a world where people aren’t paid the living wage and jobs are increasingly likely to be replaced by robots. Speaks specifically about Mincome about a third of the way through: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/mincome/
• Explores how Basic Income can be dramatically influential and beneficial, particularly in a changing world order where it is increasingly desirable to work and produce less in the interest of our health and the environment’s: https://www.livableincome.org/atrmincome.htm

Basic Income Cash Grants in India:

Two pilots to test the impact of BI grants, funded by UNICEF, coordinated by SEWA.

8 villages in Madhya Pradesh, every man, woman and child given a monthly payment of 200 rupees for adults and 100 rupees for each child (paid to the mother/guardian) – later increased to 300 & 150 respectively.

A similar scheme in a tribal village, with another village as a comparison/control.

• Guy Standing – Outlines/summarises the experiment. Provides 11 conclusions/lessons learnt from the experience, and advocates universal schemes as preferable to targeted ones (less exclusionary and costly to administer). https://isa-global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-transformative-potential-of-basic-income-grants/
• Guy Standing, 2013 – “A Background Note Prepared for the Dehli Conference” Reports on the background to the experiment, its design, evaluation, and its findings https://www.guystanding.com/files/documents/Basic_Income_Pilots_in_India_note_for_inaugural.pdf
• Standing, et. al., 2015 – “Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India (book)
• Brototi Roy, 2016 – India’s Basic Income Experience, particularly in relation to the concept of degrowth. https://www.degrowth.de/de/2016/05/universal-basic-income-in-india-a-promising-experience/

Basic Income Grant pilot project in Otjivero – Omitara, Namibia:

535 young applicants were awarded a fixed amount of money resulting in an increase of business assets by 57%, work hours by 17%, and earnings by 38%.

• Information about the BI Project in Namibia from the official Basic Income Grant Coalition in Namibia. Includes a background of the project, the research, findings and finally a map of the way forward.
  https://www.bignam.org/BIG_pilot.html
• The Official BIG Pilot Project Assessment Report (Executive Summary on p.3): https://www.bignam.org/Publications/BIG_Assessment_report_08b.pdf
• Additional publications on the Basic Income Namibia website: https://www.bignam.org/BIG_publications.html
• Haarmann & Haarmann, 2007 – posits Basic Income as a possible solution to the problems Namibia faces, including: persistent inequalities, unemployment and poverty. Basic Income would provide income security to free people from their struggle for daily survival, enabling them to escape poverty and regain employment. It would additionally redistribute financial resources to the majority of the people where they would most efficiently foster investment, risk-taking and demand. https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/bis.2007.2.1/bis.2007.2.1.1066/bis.2007.2.1.1066.xml

Finland Pilot Project:

The Finnish government has chosen at random 2,000 individuals currently unemployed and made their unemployment benefit unconditional for a period of two years. For current news about this project, see the Kela website: https://www.kela.fi/web/en/experimental-study-on-a-universal-basic-income

Uganda:

A not-for-profit organisation, Eight, is granting 50 households in a village in Uganda a basic income. The project will last two years and result in a scientific report and documentary film.

• https://basicincome.org/news/2016/04/uganda-new-two-year-basic-income-pilot-project/
• Link leads to Eight’s mission page, and a video outlining their project: https://eight.world/?page_id=802

Relevant introductory articles for this section:

• Guy Standing, 2008 – How Cash Transfers Promote the Case for Basic Income: https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/bis.2008.3.1/bis.2008.3.1.1106/bis.2008.3.1.1106.xml
• Blatmann & Niehaus, 2014 – Why Giving Cash Helps Alleviate Poverty: https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/fora93&g_sent=1&collection=journals&id=629
• Haagh, L. Working Life, Well-Being and Welfare Reform: Motivation and Institutions Revisited, Haagh (2011): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X10001804https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X10001804
• Lo Vuolo, R. (Ed.) Debate: Basic Income and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 2, Issue 1 (Jun 2007): https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bis.2007.2.1/issue-files/bis.2007.2.issue-1.xm
• Haagh, L Basic Income, Occupational freedom, and Anti-Poverty Policy, Haagh, L. A. 2007, Article in Basic Income Studies