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I think that you raise an important caveat, but I'm not as pessimistic about the transferability of this evidence; if the general claim against UBI is that it w

I think that you raise an important caveat, but I'm not as pessimistic about the transferability of this evidence; if the general claim against UBI is that it will disincentivize work, but we don't measure any disincentivization in this study, then it is certainly possible that there is a disincentivization effect that kicks in at some higher minimum wage level; however that result would be a strong justification to increase funding for similar research in wealthier economies to see where that effect might (or might not) kick in. And on the other hand, if all of the predictions of the anti-UBI camp are borne out even in a low-income country, then that probably puts a dampener on further research in the US. I don't think this study is going to provide a knock-out blow to either side, but it could significantly bolster the evidence. I object to your objection about labeling this as a UBI experiment ;) To my understanding, the fundamental premise of UBI is that it can replace all charitable programmes, be that aid funding or food stamps. The theory is that the recipient of the basic income knows how best to allocate their spending, better than the entity that is making a transfer with strings attached. You may be correct that in practice UBI looks very different in a low-income country than a high-income country, and perhaps also that they may be funded by different types of organization (NGO vs. government), but I think they can meaningfully be called the same thing.

Normal_gaussian 9y ago
Nit: In relation to 'the fundamental premise of UBI is that it can replace all charitable programmes'. This is not the fundamental premise. UBI as a financial leveller or as a minimum support value would be a different number to those in different locations and with different conditions. Location adjusts cost in terms of amenity values (heating, cooling, travel, etc.) - and it is not desirable to clump the population into one location. Condition causes a large variation in living cost - good health is not cheap, but it is cheaper than many temporary, long term, terminal, or permanent conditions. Where UBI does not take these into account - which most don't - there would still be a need for charities and other large scale societal funding mechanisms.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> To my understanding, the fundamental premise of UBI is that it can replace all charitable programmes, be that aid funding or food stamps. No. A common belief among UBI proponents is that it is generally superior to most means-tested public benefit programs, but it is neither generally (though some, especially right libertarian, proponents do argue for this) seen as replacing all other social welfare programs, nor is it generally intended by advocates to replace any charity (which is a different thing entirely than government social welfare programs.) In fact, I would argue that there is no one fundamental premise of UBI, because while it is one broad class of policy conclusion, people come to it from widely divergent premises: the various schools of left-leaning supporters don't share much in terms of premises with right-libertarian supporters, they just have the same answer to very different questions.
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> if the general claim against UBI is that it will disincentivize work, but we don't measure any disincentivization in this study The issue is that there's a lot of nuance here. For example, the claim is that a UBI provides less disincentive to work than alternative (especially means-tested) social assistance programs. But it's likely that all social assistance programs provide some disincentive to work, because they inherently increase the viability of not working (or working less). If you compare a UBI with no social assistance at all, the result will be much different than comparing it with something like means-tested food and housing vouchers. Moreover, the details are important. If instituting a UBI causes some people to choose to work 40 hours a week instead of 80 and spend the extra time with their kids, that is obviously much different than someone who quits their job so they can watch television and play video games. Even if the change in net hours worked is exactly the same.
- munk-a 9y ago
  I think that conclusion on it's disincentivation to work would be of value. Currently western society at large thinks that social assistance is a good thing, we have targeted programs like housing assistance, medicaid (or free non-pharma care up here in Canada) and food stamps. The debate on whether social assistance is a good or bad idea in general will happen orthogonally to the debate on what the best manner to provide that assistance is^1. 1) The camp that believes that social assistance is entirely evil is justified in saying that investing effort into maximizing efficiency of a bad thing is a waste of resources - that's a logical position - but I think that it's more reasonable to research our options. Anything more I could type here would just go into my personal opinions.

Normal_gaussian 9y ago

Nit: In relation to 'the fundamental premise of UBI is that it can replace all charitable programmes'. This is not the fundamental premise. UBI as a financial leveller or as a minimum support value would be a different number to those in different locations and with different conditions. Location adjusts cost in terms of amenity values (heating, cooling, travel, etc.) - and it is not desirable to clump the population into one location. Condition causes a large variation in living cost - good health is not cheap, but it is cheaper than many temporary, long term, terminal, or permanent conditions. Where UBI does not take these into account - which most don't - there would still be a need for charities and other large scale societal funding mechanisms.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> To my understanding, the fundamental premise of UBI is that it can replace all charitable programmes, be that aid funding or food stamps. No. A common belief among UBI proponents is that it is generally superior to most means-tested public benefit programs, but it is neither generally (though some, especially right libertarian, proponents do argue for this) seen as replacing all other social welfare programs, nor is it generally intended by advocates to replace any charity (which is a different thing entirely than government social welfare programs.) In fact, I would argue that there is no one fundamental premise of UBI, because while it is one broad class of policy conclusion, people come to it from widely divergent premises: the various schools of left-leaning supporters don't share much in terms of premises with right-libertarian supporters, they just have the same answer to very different questions.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> if the general claim against UBI is that it will disincentivize work, but we don't measure any disincentivization in this study The issue is that there's a lot of nuance here. For example, the claim is that a UBI provides less disincentive to work than alternative (especially means-tested) social assistance programs. But it's likely that all social assistance programs provide some disincentive to work, because they inherently increase the viability of not working (or working less). If you compare a UBI with no social assistance at all, the result will be much different than comparing it with something like means-tested food and housing vouchers. Moreover, the details are important. If instituting a UBI causes some people to choose to work 40 hours a week instead of 80 and spend the extra time with their kids, that is obviously much different than someone who quits their job so they can watch television and play video games. Even if the change in net hours worked is exactly the same.

munk-a 9y ago
I think that conclusion on it's disincentivation to work would be of value. Currently western society at large thinks that social assistance is a good thing, we have targeted programs like housing assistance, medicaid (or free non-pharma care up here in Canada) and food stamps. The debate on whether social assistance is a good or bad idea in general will happen orthogonally to the debate on what the best manner to provide that assistance is^1. 1) The camp that believes that social assistance is entirely evil is justified in saying that investing effort into maximizing efficiency of a bad thing is a waste of resources - that's a logical position - but I think that it's more reasonable to research our options. Anything more I could type here would just go into my personal opinions.