From Idea to Experiments – Final Report on Alternatives for Implementing a Basic Income Experiment

Abstract

One of the programme goals of Juha Sipilä's Government is to carry out an experiment testing the idea of an unconditional basic income. The experiment will seek to identify ways to align the social security system with changes in the nature of work, to create greater work incentives within the system, to reduce bureaucracy, and to simplify the benefit system which in its present form has many disincentive effects relating to incomes, employment participation and bureaucratic structures. Prior to carrying out the experiment, the Prime Minister's Office commissioned a report outlining various alternatives for implementing a basic income. Delivered on 30 March 2016, the preliminary report investigates a fully-fledged unconditional basic income model, a partial basic income model, a negative income tax model as well as possible other models in terms of their suitability for the experiment. Partly on the basis of the preliminary report, the Government submitted to Parliament a bill on the basic income experiment (HE 215/2016 vp).

This final report looks at the preconditions for undertaking further basic income experiments. The report proposes a series of experiments testing various basic income regimes and associated tax models in an iterative matter. The basic income experiment, set to begin in 2017, could be followed up with an experiment with a larger study population including not only unemployed persons but also individuals with low incomes, and substantially increasing the sample size in order to ensure that the results are statistically significant. Once a national incomes registry has been finalized, also models based around negative income taxation could be tested.

Full text (julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi)

Authors

Olli Kangas, Pertti Honkanen, Kari Hämäläinen, Markus Kanerva, Ohto Kanninen, Jani-Petri Laamanen, Ville-Veikko Pulkka, Tapio Räsänen, Miska Simanainen, Anna-Kaisa Tuovinen, Jouko Verho

Additional Information

• Peer-Reviewed: no.
• Open Access: yes.
• Cite as: Kangas, O., Honkanen, P., Hämäläinen, K., Kanerva, M., Kanninen, O., Laamanen, J., Pulkka, V., Räsänen, T., Simanainen, M., Tuovinen, A., & Verho, J. (2016). Ideasta kokeiluihin: Loppuraportti perustulokokeilun toteuttamisvaihtoehdoista. (Valtioneuvoston selvitys- ja tutkimustoiminnan julkaisusarja 63). Valtioneuvoston kanslia. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-287-539-6