What Do Our Case Studies Tell Us?

This chapter starts with the assumption of the possibility for scalability and comparability and tries to identify whether basic income experiments and pilots offer some common ground, namely in terms of knowledge of their impacts, and how they relate to basic income as a concept as outlined in the introduction. By analyzing existing evidence, it is clear how the problem of limited comparability can partly be solved by examining the qualitative and quantitative evidence (together?) and by relating it with the theoretical discussion on the impact of basic income. This should help the reader to understand our general perception and interpretation of all the interviews: we already know much about the possible impacts of implementing a basic income, namely in terms of well-being or health, even if we still have significant gaps in our understanding of the effects of basic income on labor market participation or community effects in general. This chapter closes by asking what the role of basic income experiments as an instrument for advocacy, policymaking, or as a research tool can be. As a key question of the book, we received many answers from the stakeholders we interviewed, which are worth mentioning and connecting to the ongoing debate in the literature.