Another limited duration trial (two years). What's the point? It's not going to measure the real effect. People will know it is going to run out and behave differently than if it was permanent.
Don't give them the money just for two years, but guarantee them the money over their whole life and you will see vastly different results.
Another "problem" with this kind of study is that they are giving money only to unemployed people. Because it would be also interesting to see what people with jobs would do. I suspect a lot of people would switch from full-time to part-time jobs (at least that's what I would do).
Don't give them the money just for two years, but guarantee them the money over their whole life and you will see vastly different results.
Since people born into wealth are "guaranteed money over their whole life", can't we study what they do with their life compared to what people who are not born into money do with their life? How or how not would this kind of study produce meaningful, legitimate results?
Another "problem" with this kind of study is that they are giving money only to unemployed people. Because it would be also interesting to see what people with jobs would do. I suspect a lot of people would switch from full-time to part-time jobs (at least that's what I would do).
There is some aspect of this kind of experiment/study to find out how individuals would perform if they didn't have the guaranteed income in the past but then suddenly do, but that's only meaningful for the transitional generation. If UBI were truly universal, it would need to be multi-generational. And how would those born with it, never having known anything else, treat/understand work? There's no such thing as "switching from a full-time to part-time jobs" in this context, or at least the impact and meaning of doing so is different than those who have a concept of what not having the guaranteed income means.
That study wants to shed some light on whether UBI is viable or not, but limits UBI for two years. I suppose people are then less inclined to change anything in there life and just see UBI as a nice, not-life-changing win in the lottery. People are not behaving as with a "real" UBI. Can we agree on that?
There is some aspect of this kind of experiment/study to find out how individuals would perform if they didn't have the guaranteed income in the past but then suddenly do, but that's only meaningful for the transitional generation.
IMHO you can't ignore this that easily. When more people are quitting their jobs or switch to part-time jobs from full-time jobs due to UBI, the government loses taxes but now needs to pay for UBI. This is super-important to see if this whole thing is financially feasible.
IIUC you are arguing that people that grew up with UBI would behave differently compared to people that just switched to UBI? To be honest I don't feel this particular convincing, why should this be the case? There probably isn't any data on it either. Even if it would, the government/state still has to get through the transition period. One could with the same right claim that future generations are less inclined to work/educate than the transitional generation and thus make financing UBI even more difficult.
IIUC you are arguing that people that grew up with UBI would behave differently compared to people that just switched to UBI? To be honest I don't feel this particular convincing, why should this be the case? There probably isn't any data on it either.
No, I'm saying that this is worth studying, exactly because (I agree) there isn't any data on it.
One problem, as you point out, is the ongoing cost. Socialism works better when there is a capitalist system, externally, to set the prices and help determine demand. The Eloi need the Morlocks to provide for them. The monetary cost for any UBI experiment on individuals' actions is, by definition, being paid for by something outside that experiment. But that's fine, this experiment is meant to answer the question of how the recipients respond to it, not how/if it is or is not long term viable (however the results of this experiment would eventually need to feed into that). And my point is we can start to answer this experiment by examining what people who are born into money do. What kind of jobs do they take? How do they act when they have a guaranteed complete safety net? There is a lot of data available on this, and it is not time limited like a two year study would be.
While this is true, it is the closest thing that already exists to a basic income, so it should be the first place to go for material to study before/while setting up a more controlled experiment (assuming a highly controlled, completely reproducible experiment actually can be set up in social/economic sciences).
Even in a UBI setup, it's the government's/public's money, not the recipient's, right up until the point where it changes hands. A wealthy family can (and often does) make just as strong of a guarantee for a stipend as a government can.
I don't believe the two scenarios to be as similar as you do.
Wealthy families are able to provide a layer of security that a government stipend never could. You can blow away your monthly stipend from your wealthy family on drugs and alcohol instead of paying the rent, and you're unlikely to end up living on the streets as your family will fold and send you more money. (anecdote: over the last 15 years I've met over a dozen people who were and/or still are like this)
When comparing wealthy family stipends to government stipends, the guarantee needs to be the same. Instead, wealthy families are generally able to guarantee a minimum stipend for their dependents, while governments would be guaranteeing a minimum==maximum stipend for their dependents/recipients.
It appears you're referring to when I said "(assuming a highly controlled, completely reproducible experiment actually can be set up in social/economic sciences)". I'm not making this assumption, I'm questioning if a meaningful experiment can actually be formulated and performed.
If a meaningful experiment can not be performed (and I'm not saying that it can), then examining and observing how people born into rich families operate would give better, or at least no worse, information than an uncontrolled, non-reproducible experiment would. And it might actually be cheaper to study those with money already rather than give people money just to be able to study them.
What would be an acceptable limit ? 10 years ? in that span you're free to plan long project, even raise children in the same place long enough they can develop habits, friends, without too much stress.
I think we could get some insights even with a broken test. But it has to be made by open minded scientists other wise people will interpret it as final truth.
Problem is that a "good economy" is a subjective idea. It won't matter if open-minded scientists review it 'cause people are going to interpret the results how ever they want anyways.
Edit: I'm not really aiming to contradict you. I would like to see it analyzed in an unbiased manner.
I think it's completely useless. The only results I care about are in the long term (30+ years). This is essentially a 2 year salary giveaway. Not even close to UBI.
While widening the scope in either duration or number of people would certainly help, I think this is still useful. It should still tell us to what extent the current benefits system leaves short side gigs and new small businesses on the table.
The time limit may, to an unrealistic degree, encourage the subjects to look for solutions for the long term. Then again the question of whether UBI encourages laziness seems to be out of scope already, since this targets only people who are already unemployed.
Well it's probably better than just instituting a program and hoping it works. Ideally, all government programs should be subject to measurement and re-evaluation.
The choice does not have to be between "do a bad study" or "do no study at all".
A proper study would be permanent and self-contained. Participants would need to give a portion of outside income to the program to simulate higher taxes and/or inflation.
Results can start to be worthwhile early on. But the life-altering decisions people make over a two year period when guaranteed a subsidy that runs out at the end of those two years are not particularly likely to be the same as the life altering decisions people make over a two year period when guaranteed that subsidy for life.
(If you wanted to really understand all the dynamics, you'd probably want to wait more than a generation to understand how subsidy recipients' decisions to raise children are affected and whether those children make systematically different life choices.)
