The Decision to Implement UBI Experiments

This chapter discusses different aspects related to the decision to conduct UBI experiments. We start by asking to what extent moral and instrumental arguments are used to justify implementing these kinds of experiments and basic income-related policies. Although these two arguments mostly work together when experimenting, the second section of this chapter argues that scientists and politicians in charge of rolling out these experiments or implementing these kinds of policies differ in their respective logic and procedures, and these differences inevitably affect the design, implementation, and evaluation of basic income experiments and related programs. However, the decision to implement a basic income experiment is not solely explained by these different scientific and political decisions. The third section of the chapter addresses the role of the political scenario and the actual political debate in explaining when, how, and in what manner an experiment or a policy is about to be implemented, or on the contrary, why it is rejected. Moreover, the structure, logic, and functioning of the welfare regime model and of existing social policies also frame the discussion around the (in)convenience of implementing a basic income experiment or rolling out a similar in-cash policy. Finally, our last section explores the hypothesis that UBI experiments’ features are more due to political reasons than scientific ones.