From the Universal Welfare State to the Universal Basic Income?: A Study on the Finnish Government’s Policy Experiment of Basic Income (2017-2018)

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (0) ◽  
pp. 1-45
Author(s):  
Hyeon-Su Seo ◽  
Hansoo Choi
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Policy Experiment

scholarly journals Social Investment, Redistribution or Basic Income? Exploring the Association Between Automation Risk and Welfare State Attitudes in Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
MARIUS R. BUSEMEYER ◽  
ALEXANDER H. J. SAHM
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Using Data

Abstract Rapid technological change – the digitalization and automation of work – is challenging contemporary welfare states. Most of the existing research, however, focuses on its effect on labor market outcomes, such as employment or wage levels. In contrast, this paper studies the implications of technological change for welfare state attitudes and preferences. Compared to previous work on this topic, this paper adopts a much broader perspective regarding different kinds of social policy. Using data from the European Social Survey, we find that individual automation risk is positively associated with support for redistribution, but negatively with support for social investment policies (partly depending on the specific measure of automation risk that is used), while there is no statistically significant association with support for basic income. We also find a moderating effect of the overall size of the welfare state on the micro-level association between risk and preferences.

The Second Marriage of Justice and Efficiency

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe van Parijs
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTNo major reform of the welfare state has a chance of going through unless one can make a plausible case as to both its ‘ethical value’ and its ‘economic.value’, that is, that it would have a positive effect in terms of both justice and efficiency. In this essay, this rough conjecture is first presented, and its plausibility probed, on the background of some stylised facts about the rise of modern welfare states in the postwar period. Next, the focus is shifted to the current debate on the introduction of a basic income, a completely unconditional grant paid ex ante to all citizens. It is argued that if basic income is to have a chance of meeting the strong twofold condition stipulated in the conjecture, some major changes are required in the way one usually thinks about justice and efficiency in connection with social policy. But once these changes are made, as they arguably must be, the chance that basic income may be able to meet the challenge is greatly enhanced.

scholarly journals Citizens’ Opinions About Basic Income Proposals Compared – A Conjoint Analysis of Finland and Switzerland

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
ISABELLE STADELMANN-STEFFEN ◽  
CLAU DERMONT
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Conjoint Analysis ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Exact Design ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThe basic income (BI) scheme is a fundamental reform of the welfare state that has recently gained widespread attention. Proposals for different variants of BI schemes have emerged to account for varying political and societal goals. This study investigates what citizens think about the idea of a BI, and to what extent citizens’ perceptions depend on the exact design of such a scheme and the context in which this policy is embedded. Empirically, we rely on conjoint experiments conducted in Finland and Switzerland – the two countries in which the introduction of a BI scheme has recently been discussed most intensely. We find that the level of public support for BI is higher in Finland than it is in Switzerland. Moreover, despite the contrasting designs of the BI proposals in the two countries, both Finnish and Swiss citizens tend to favor more generous schemes restricting non-nationals’ access to the provision.

scholarly journals Support for a universal basic income: A demand–capacity paradox?

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Parolin ◽  
Linus Siöland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Country Level

Debate around a universal basic income (UBI) tends to focus on the economic and social implications of the policy proposal. Less clear, however, are the factors influencing support for a UBI. Using the 2016 European Social Survey, we investigate how trade union membership and left political ideology (central to power resources theory) and attitudes towards immigrants’ access to welfare benefits (central to welfare state chauvinism) affect individual support for a UBI. We also investigate how country-level differences in levels of social spending moderate individual-level UBI support. Results from multi-level models suggest that a broader coalition of UBI supporters can generally be found in countries where social spending is low. Specifically, we find that welfare state chauvinism is more likely to be associated with negative attitudes towards a UBI in countries with high levels of spending, but has only a weak association with UBI support in low-spending countries. Similarly, political ideology is more consequential in explaining UBI support in countries with higher levels of spending. These tensions form a demand–capacity paradox: the countries which are presumably least equipped to implement a UBI see the most broad-based support for the policy.

scholarly journals Welfare without rent seeking? Buchanan’s demogrant proposal and the possibility of a constitutional welfare state

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Otto Lehto ◽  
John Meadowcroft
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Constitutional Political Economy ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Majoritarian Democracy ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Future Task ◽  
Negative Income Tax

AbstractIn a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’—a form of universal basic income that applied the principles of generality and non discrimination to the tax and the transfer sides of the scheme and was to be implemented as a constitutional rule outside the realm of day-to-day politics. The demogrant has received surprisingly little scholarly attention, but this article locates it in Buchanan’s broader constitutional political economy project and shows it was a logical application of his theoretical framework to the problem of inefficient and unfair welfare systems when reform to the basic institutions of majoritarian democracy was not forthcoming. The demogrant aims to end the problems of majority cycling and rent seeking that plague contemporary welfare states and therefore offers a model of welfare without rent seeking—a constitutional welfare state. We compare Buchanan’s demogrant model to other universal basic income and negative income tax models and consider the most important criticisms. We conclude that rescuing the demogrant model from relative obscurity would be a fruitful future task of applied constitutional political economy and public choice.

scholarly journals Piketty’s Capital, His Critics and Basic Income

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén M. Lo Vuolo
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wealth Concentration ◽  
Public Agenda ◽  
Tax Structures ◽  
Aggregate Income

AbstractAmong other merits, Piketty’s book puts the topic of inequality and income/wealth concentration in the public agenda. His analysis concludes that aggregate income and wealth have tended to concentrate in the top few percentiles of the population. His research as well as the policy and political debate it has brought about, is relevant for the progress of the Basic Income movement. The tendencies for income and wealth concentration, the importance of inheritance for inequality, the weak foundations of current welfare state institutions, and the relevance of the tax structures for redistribution, all are central themes on the Basic Income debate. In this article, the author discusses certain aspects of Piketty’s

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