Gift link of an article by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo from Saturday’s *Wall Street Journal* review section:
> The rise of artificial intelligence has made the conversation about a universal basic income (UBI) more urgent than ever. There are various predictions about what robots and automation and large language models will do to the availability of good jobs. But Elon Musk, Sam Altman and other tech moguls share the concern that a large fraction of jobs currently performed by humans will soon be turned over to machines. The idea behind a UBI is to give everyone a guaranteed income that is enough to live on.
> One critical question is whether an inflow of unearned cash would cause people to become lazy and stop working altogether. Standard economic models predict a negative “income effect on labor supply,” and policymakers across the world very publicly worry about it.
> Behavioral economists have also flagged the concern that if people receive a guaranteed income, they will choose to spend it on leisure even when it is not in their long-term interest. By working today, they would accumulate useful experience and skills they could parlay into better jobs in the future. But it may be too tempting to take the time off now and forgo the opportunity for self-improvement.
> In recent years, a number of countries have introduced conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, making it possible for economists to study the effects of simply giving people money. In 2010, 27 low- and middle-income countries had a CCT program; by 2016, the number had reached 64. These programs had no work requirement, although they had other requirements, such as sending children to school or requiring pregnant mothers to have their babies in a hospital.
EconomistWithaD on
So, while I agree with Banerjee and Duflo that the UBI has generated pretty good impacts elsewhere, in the US, at least with the most current evidence, it does generate negative intensive and extensive margin labor market impacts.
LF participation dropped by nearly 4 percentage points, and hours worked by 1-2 hours per week (couples saw reduced hours EACH).
Perhaps it’s the level of the benefits. Perhaps it’s the length of the treatment. But it’s not certain a UBI would be significantly better (both efficiency and outcomes).
Lalalama on
If I had universal basic income I would not work. I would chill all day and my life would be grand. I would move to a cheaper country and live there lol. It’s like being on social security
RyukXXXX on
Didn’t OpenResearch do a study on this?
This video tackles UBI in this context. Time stamp 9:11.
4 Comments
Gift link of an article by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo from Saturday’s *Wall Street Journal* review section:
> The rise of artificial intelligence has made the conversation about a universal basic income (UBI) more urgent than ever. There are various predictions about what robots and automation and large language models will do to the availability of good jobs. But Elon Musk, Sam Altman and other tech moguls share the concern that a large fraction of jobs currently performed by humans will soon be turned over to machines. The idea behind a UBI is to give everyone a guaranteed income that is enough to live on.
> One critical question is whether an inflow of unearned cash would cause people to become lazy and stop working altogether. Standard economic models predict a negative “income effect on labor supply,” and policymakers across the world very publicly worry about it.
> Behavioral economists have also flagged the concern that if people receive a guaranteed income, they will choose to spend it on leisure even when it is not in their long-term interest. By working today, they would accumulate useful experience and skills they could parlay into better jobs in the future. But it may be too tempting to take the time off now and forgo the opportunity for self-improvement.
> In recent years, a number of countries have introduced conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, making it possible for economists to study the effects of simply giving people money. In 2010, 27 low- and middle-income countries had a CCT program; by 2016, the number had reached 64. These programs had no work requirement, although they had other requirements, such as sending children to school or requiring pregnant mothers to have their babies in a hospital.
So, while I agree with Banerjee and Duflo that the UBI has generated pretty good impacts elsewhere, in the US, at least with the most current evidence, it does generate negative intensive and extensive margin labor market impacts.
LF participation dropped by nearly 4 percentage points, and hours worked by 1-2 hours per week (couples saw reduced hours EACH).
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719
Perhaps it’s the level of the benefits. Perhaps it’s the length of the treatment. But it’s not certain a UBI would be significantly better (both efficiency and outcomes).
If I had universal basic income I would not work. I would chill all day and my life would be grand. I would move to a cheaper country and live there lol. It’s like being on social security
Didn’t OpenResearch do a study on this?
This video tackles UBI in this context. Time stamp 9:11.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MYB0SVTGRj4