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Outline

Title
Abstract
Background
Designing the Intervention
Designing the Research Component
Research Questions
Research Methods
Data
Informing Participants
What Data?
Conclusion and General Principles
References
All Topics
Philosophy
Ethics

Centre for Development Studies Report

Profile image of Bru LaínBru Laín

2024, Doing Radical Things Right. Ethical Good Practices for Basic Income Experiments

Abstract

Increasing calls for reform to welfare provision have seen growing support for basic income (BI) -the unconditional provision of cash transfers to all. As a result, recent years have seen an exponential increase in the number of pilot experiments of BI, across all parts of the world. However, to date, there has been little discussion of the ethical considerations of such experiments. This paper is the outcome of a workshop whereby BI piloters came together to discuss such ethical considerations, share case studies, and begin to formulate general principles to guide ethical BI experiments. The paper discusses the ethical considerations relevant to the various stages of a pilot experiment and concludes with some general principles: to do-no-harm, maintain respect, dignity, and agency; mitigate power inequalities, promote trust and transparency, and ensure substantive unconditionality. The paper hopes to stimulate discussions towards an ethical protocol for better practice in BI experiments and provide a useful resource to those working on, or interested in, BI research.

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Chapter 7 Experimental Economics: A Test-Bed for the Unconditional Basic Income
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Experimental economics is a method used by economists to explain or predict the behaviour of economic agents under a controlled institutional environment. This method can be used to test policies in order to inform policy-makers about the impact of proposed alternatives referred to as 'whispering in the ears of princes' (Nobel prize winner Al Roth). In this chapter, we take a detailed look at this method and how it can help to understand the consequences of an Unconditional Basic Income. Additionally, we demonstrate a small scale experiments on risk-taking with and without the influence of the Unconditional Basic Income.

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Policy Studies Journal, 2025

The growing popularity of basic income has led to extensive trials of the policy in numerous settings across the world. However, analysis of the politics of basic income, and in particular the political dynamics preceding and resulting from trial programs, lags. In response, we propose a research agenda that uses political scale to investigate where basic income trials emerge, how individual trials' design and implementation parameters vary, and how those trials influence subsequent policy development. By focusing on the previously omitted variable of political scale, our approach addresses a number of key challenges in evaluating basic income trials. First, we provide a means of identifying negative and partial cases to remedy the small-N problem at the national and regional scales. Second, focusing on a given scale helps to identify specific incumbent programs and policy possibilities influenced by basic income trials. Third, our framework draws attention to the importance of distinct, scale-based political dynamics in both securing basic income trials and converting trial programs into future policy changes. K E Y W O R D S basic income, cash transfers, political scale, social experiments, trial programs This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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[article] "The ethics of new Development Economics: Is the experimental approach to Development Economics morally wrong?" (Journal of Philosophical Economics)
Stephane Baele

Journal of Philosophical Economics vol.7 n°1, 2013

The 2000s have witnessed the arrival and growing popularity of randomized controlled experiments (RCTs) in Development Economics. Whilst this new way of conducting research on development has unfolded important insights, the ethical challenge it provokes has not yet been systematically examined. The present article aims at filling this gap by providing the first ad hoc discussion of the moral issues that accompany the use of RCTs in Development Economics. Claiming that this new research agenda needs its own, specific set of ethical guidelines, we expose the six ethical problems that these experiments potentially provoke and that should therefore be carefully assessed by ethics committees before an RCT is launched and by scholarly journals before its results are published.

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Related papers

Why Do We Run Basic Income Experiments? From Empirical Evidence to Collective Debate
Bru Laín

Basic Income Studies, 2021

There are two major possible responses to the question "what (if anything) can justify a basic income experiment?" An experiment might be justified either because it gathers positive empirical evidence supporting rolling out a basic income, or because it justifies the moral desirability of such a measure. This paper critically explores both responses, the “empirical” and “ethical claim” in light of the Barcelona B-MINCOME pilot, alongside other similar experiments. We sustained that although the empirical claim is necessary, there seems to be sufficient data to easily predict that all future experiments are to gather positive results too. Consequently, we argue that experiments are particularly well-equipped to foster debates on the work ethics and on the ethical dimension of social policies and welfare regimes in general.

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A Plea for the Use of Laboratory Experiments in Basic Income Research
Jurgen De Wispelaere

Basic Income Studies 1(2), 2006

In recent years interest in conducting a European basic income experiment, along the lines of the famous NIT experiments in the US and Canada in the 1970s and 1980s, has grown considerably. In this short comment we caution against embarking on this route. We offer two reasons against the use of field experiments in basic income research, its vulnerability to political manipulation and its incapacity to offer real answers to the pressing questions that need to be addressed before a basic income scheme can be implemented. Instead, we suggest laboratory experiments carefully mimicking selective social situations might offer crucial insight in the operation of basic income schemes.

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Policy Details as a Plea for Basic Income Experiments
Bru Laín

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2022

Amy Castro and Stacia West (2022), with whom I have had the opportunity to exchange ideas on these pages, defend the need to continue experimenting with cash transfer policies through new experiments or pilot projects such as the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) that they personally helped to design and evaluate. I agree with them. As I argued in my first contribution to this debate, I sincerely believe that experiments on unconditional income schemes can provide very useful and valuable information in moving towards the full establishment of an unconditional basic income (UBI). In this regard, we should welcome the recent creation of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania, which will surely contribute to the systematization of study and the accumulation of a scientific corpus on income policies in general, and on UBI in particular.

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Experimenting with Unconditional Basic Income
Minna Ylikännö

Experimenting with Unconditional Basic Income, 2021

His research interests revolve around comparative analysis of social policy systems, their causes and consequences in terms of the macro-economy, income distribution, health and well-being of the population, and legitimacy of social institutions. His latest publications include: Simanainen, M. and Kangas, O (2020), 'Speaking to those who know it best. Does participation in an experiment explain citizens' attitudes toward basic income?'

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Between Epistemic Necessity and Political Utility: The ROle of Basic Income Experiments
Bru Laín

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2022

The idea that every member of society should be granted an individual, unconditional, and sufficient cash payment has attracted much attention over the last few years. Initially viewed merely as a utopian idea upheld by a handful of scholars, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is now considered a policy proposal with real chances of being implemented. Beyond academia, UBI is attracting the attention of politicians, policymakers, and the public in general, who usually understand it as a tool to reinforce traditional social protection systems. Nevertheless, it is also seen as a core element of a new rationale for future welfare regimes: less targeted, more universal, less strings-attached, more unconditional.

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Related topics

  • Moral and Ethical Issues in Science
  • Epistemology of the Social Sciences
  • Social Experiments
  • Basic Income Experiments
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