3 ms·

Question: Wouldnt it make more sense to pick an more isolated ecosystem than oakland? Eg a smaller town or even a small country (eg an island country - yes sou

Question: Wouldnt it make more sense to pick an more isolated ecosystem than oakland? Eg a smaller town or even a small country (eg an island country - yes sounds crazy but actually why not) Or is the goal rather to find out how people will act? (as in: get lazy or not)

badloginagain 10y ago
I don't think how isolated the ecosystem is too important. I would be more concerned with the methodology of measuring how behaviour has changed- Are they going to follow around candidates before the checks come rolling in to establish baseline behaviours?
- mattkrisiloff 10y ago
  We're going to have a control group for the pilot that doesn't receive an income, and following base-line behavior is something we'll consider doing for the main study.
  - andreasklinger 10y ago
    To understand this correctly: the core goal of the study is to see how people will behave?
    - elizabeth-ycr 10y ago
      We are focusing on the individual-level effects (not the ecosystem), but it's a lot more than how people act and behave. We'll provide more details on outcome measures later, but we’ll be interviewing participants to understand their decision-making processes and the constraints they face. It isn’t enough to know that certain outcomes are associated with basic income; we want to know how cash transfers generate the effects and why outcomes vary among recipients (if they do). These insights can inform future research and policies.
      - andreasklinger 10y ago
        got it. thanks!
morgante 10y ago
I had this same thought. Even if the goal is to study how people act, it seems that actions would be very different depending on whether your community is isolated or not. For example, if I'm part of a small study within a city, it's unlikely that most of my social sphere would also be part of the study. Thus I might be pressured to keep doing a job I hate to avoid the stigma of unemployment. On the other hand, if I were in a small island community where everyone had UBI I think there would be much less pressure to keep working undesirable jobs. Also, Oakland seems like a very expensive choice. Part of the reason I supported Give Directly's UBI experiment was because they are wisely choosing an area where funding can stretch to many more people. Obviously, there are some differences based on the country's level of development, but even choosing an isolated town in the USA would be cheaper and likely more informative.

badloginagain 10y ago

I don't think how isolated the ecosystem is too important. I would be more concerned with the methodology of measuring how behaviour has changed- Are they going to follow around candidates before the checks come rolling in to establish baseline behaviours?

mattkrisiloff 10y ago
We're going to have a control group for the pilot that doesn't receive an income, and following base-line behavior is something we'll consider doing for the main study.
- andreasklinger 10y ago
  To understand this correctly: the core goal of the study is to see how people will behave?
  - elizabeth-ycr 10y ago
    We are focusing on the individual-level effects (not the ecosystem), but it's a lot more than how people act and behave. We'll provide more details on outcome measures later, but we’ll be interviewing participants to understand their decision-making processes and the constraints they face. It isn’t enough to know that certain outcomes are associated with basic income; we want to know how cash transfers generate the effects and why outcomes vary among recipients (if they do). These insights can inform future research and policies.
    - andreasklinger 10y ago
      got it. thanks!

morgante 10y ago

I had this same thought. Even if the goal is to study how people act, it seems that actions would be very different depending on whether your community is isolated or not. For example, if I'm part of a small study within a city, it's unlikely that most of my social sphere would also be part of the study. Thus I might be pressured to keep doing a job I hate to avoid the stigma of unemployment. On the other hand, if I were in a small island community where everyone had UBI I think there would be much less pressure to keep working undesirable jobs. Also, Oakland seems like a very expensive choice. Part of the reason I supported Give Directly's UBI experiment was because they are wisely choosing an area where funding can stretch to many more people. Obviously, there are some differences based on the country's level of development, but even choosing an isolated town in the USA would be cheaper and likely more informative.