Are UBI experiments necessary to implement a UBI?
Pros and cons of experimenting

Friday, May 21, 2021, 3 GMT
(5pm in Spain, Germany) | 4pm (in Portugal) | 9am (in West coast-US)

Zoom: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/81991090252?pwd=cThJK3d3b1hrU3h4RjlveWRYYndqUT09
ID: 819 9109 0252  |  Password: 604787 (in case you get in by phone)
 
Facebook Livestream: www.facebook.com/RendimentoBasicoPortugal

* No registration required *

Invited speakers
Amy Castro Baker (SEED - Stockton)
Bru Laín (UBIEXP, Portugal - B-MINCOME, Barcelona)
Jamie Cooke (RSA, Scotland)
Bernhard Neurmäker (FRIBIS - Freiburg).

Each speaker will be intervening for 15 min., leaving 30 min. for public questions and comments.

To what extent are experiments suitable for advancing the cause of basic income? Are these experiments a sort of a first step towards fully implementing it? As most of the already conducted basic income experiments have shown, they are certainly useful for gathering important insights and evidence informing some potential basic income effects, particularly on qualitative dimensions such as subjective well-being, happiness, stress-release, or social participation. However, they are not so conclusive in the case of labour market nor in assessing potential political support for a measure like this.

Despite of this (controversial) collected evidence, none of the countries where pilots have been tested has implemented a basic income. This raises the question of whether experimenting is a necessary (or even useful) tool for advancing the full implementation of a UBI. Is there, thus, any kind of trade-off when considering experimenting instead of directly pushing our governments to roll out this measure?

Although basic income is frequently evoked and discussed, it seems far from being implemented. Basic income is certainly an extremely attractive object of scientific study but it must be distinguished from basic income as a political goal.

The aim of this online seminar is thus to explore the pros and cons of experimenting with basic income schemas when considering the implementation of this measure as the ultimate goal. Due to the heterogeneous nature of the questions this online seminar raises, diverse and complementary disciplines are particularly welcome. We therefore invite sociologists, political scientists, economists, political and social philosophers, and analysts in general, to exchange and mutually enrich their points of view and to offer a complex but appealing discussion about the role of basic income experiments.