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A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments for Researchers, Policymakers, and Citizens

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Karl Widerquist

    1. Georgetown University in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

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  • Critically discusses how to run and report the results of UBI experiments
  • Provides a concise, easy-to-read overview of UBI experiments that is accessible to policymakers, researchers, reporters and citizens
  • Shows how crucial it is for experiments to understand the public discussion of UBI and suggests how to present experimental findings in a way that avoids past problems with spin and sensationalism

Part of the book series: Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)

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Table of contents (19 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 1-14

  3. Universal Basic Income and Its More Testable Sibling, the Negative Income Tax

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 15-18

  4. Available Testing Techniques

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 19-25

  5. Testing Difficulties

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 27-35

  6. The Practical Impossibility of Testing UBI

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 37-42

  7. BIG Experiments of the 1970s and the Public Reaction to Them

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 43-55

  8. New Experimental Findings 2008–2013

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 57-59

  9. Current, Planned, and Proposed Experiments, 2014–Present

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 61-70

  10. The Political Economy of the Decision to Have a UBI Experiment

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 71-75

  11. The Vulnerability of Experimental Findings to Misunderstanding, Misuse, Spin, and the Streetlight Effect

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 77-85

  12. Why UBI Experiments Cannot Resolve Much of the Public Disagreement About UBI

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 87-91

  13. The Bottom Line

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 93-98

  14. Identifying Important Empirical Claims in the UBI Debate

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 99-104

  15. Claims That Don’t Need a Test

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 105-108

  16. Claims That Can’t Be Tested with Available Techniques

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 109-114

  17. Claims That Can Be Tested but Only Partially, Indirectly, or Inconclusively

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 115-129

  18. From the Dream Test to Good Tests Within Feasible Budgets

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 131-139

  19. Why Have an Experiment at All?

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 141-144

  20. Overcoming Spin, Sensationalism, Misunderstanding, and the Streetlight Effect

    • Karl Widerquist
    Pages 145-149
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Keywords

About this book

At least six different Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiments are underway or planned right now in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, and Kenya. Several more countries are considering conducting experiments. Yet, there seems to be more interest simply in having UBI experiments than in exactly what we want to learn from them. Although experiments can produce a lot of relevant data about UBI, they are crucially limited in their ability to enlighten our understanding of the big questions that bear on the discussion of whether to implement UBI as a national or regional policy. And, past experience shows that results of UBI experiments are particularly vulnerable misunderstanding, sensationalism, and spin. This book examines the difficulties of conducting a UBI experiment and reporting the results in ways that successfully improve public understanding of the probable effects of a national UBI. The book makes recommendations how researchers, reporters, citizens, and policymakers can avoid these problems and get the most out of UBI experiments.


Reviews

“Widerquist’s book … arguments about the usefulness of experiments and about how they should be carried out, but it will be essential reading for anyone planning an experiment. It is an important contribution to the Citizen’s Basic Income literature.” (Citizen’s Income newsletter, Issue 2, 2019)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Georgetown University in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

    Karl Widerquist

About the author

Karl Widerquist is Associate Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He is an internationally recognized expert not only on Basic Income, which he has written about as an economist, philosopher, political theorist, and policy analyst, but also on Basic Income experiments. He has published several academic and non-academic articles on Basic Income experiments over the last 15 years and is the editor of the book series Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee (Palgrave Macmillan). He was a founding editor of the journal Basic Income Studies and co-chair of BIEN for seven years.

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