From Experiment to Policy Implementation?

After several years of implementing UBI experiments, a growing number of analysts and commentators are exploring the possibility of how to move from experimenting to implementing basic income as a real nation-wide policy. For this reason, in the first section of this chapter, we explore the pros and cons of considering basic income as an object of study to be tested through different social experiments—such as randomized control trials (RCT)—or of considering it a real policy option, in which case, political and scientific implications seem far more profound. In the second section of the chapter, we assess to what extent and in which manners these experiments, and policies can be altered by political intervention or manipulation, and then if the so-called evidence-based policies (such as the tested basic income models) will always be condemned as a utopian project rather than a serious scientific program to inform public policies empirically and honestly. Consequently, and considering the most recent concerns of the basic income community, we thirdly and lastly explore the question whether it is preferable to continue experimenting or if these efforts should be discarded in favor of direct lobbying from different social, political, and academic pulpits to definitely implement a real basic income policy.