The Citizen's Basic Income Day took place at the LSE on Tuesday 20th February 2018, and it unfolded in three parts: a morning session, an afternoon session, and an evening debate. The morning brought together a number of experts on the political feasibility, funding methods, and costing of Citizen’s Basic Income; and the afternoon brought together, for the first time in an academic platform, speakers from pilot projects and experiments around the world.

See the Programme

Discussion of a Citizen’s Basic Income – an unconditional, nonwithdrawable income for every individual (and sometimes called a Basic Income, a Citizen’s Income, or a Universal Basic Income) – is now a mainstream global social policy debate. During the morning some crucial aspects of the debate were discussed. During the afternoon, findings from projects in Namibia, India, Kenya, Finland and research on the US and Canadian experiments of the 1970s were shared. Studies and pilots currently underway were introduced, including among others initiatives in Scotland, the Netherlands, Iran and Serbia. The session concluded with a discussion panel by LSE academics and UNDP representatives on the implications of researching and implementing universal basic income globally.

Twitter hashtags for this event: #LSEBeveridge #LSEFestival

Morning Session

Speakers:

Dr Malcolm Torry, Social Policy Department, LSE; Citizen's Basic Income Trust
"The definition of a Citizen’s Basic Income"

Hartley Dean, Professor of Social Policy in the Social Policy Department, LSE
"The feasibility of a Citizen’s Basic Income from a socialist perspective"

Daniel Pryor, Adam Smith Institute
"The Neoliberal Case for Basic Income"

Iva Tasseva, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex
"How EUROMOD works and what it can achieve: Introducing Participation Income in the UK"

Dr Luke Martinelli, Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath
"Is a Citizen’s Basic Income Financially Feasible? Fiscal, distributional and work incentive effects of the IPR’s illustrative schemes"

Howard Reed, Landman Economics
"Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come? Microsimulation results obtained during research for Compass"

Gareth Morgan, Ferret Information Systems
"Comparing some scenarios of current benefits support with a basic income element included"

Anne Miller, Chair of the Citizen’s Basic Income Trust
"Basic Income Brief"

Chair: John Macnicol, Visiting Professor in the Social Policy Department, LSE

Afternoon Session

Listen to the podcast: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.

Speakers:

Chair: Dr Enkeleida Tahiraj, LSEE Research on South Eastern Europe

Dr Sarath Davala, India Network for Basic Income (INBI)
"The Transformative and Emancipatory Potential of Basic Income: Evidence from Indian Pilot Study"

Professor Evelyn L Forget, University of Manitoba
"The MINCOME Project and Ontario’s BIG Experiment"

Dr Dirk Haarmann, Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition; BIG Pilot Project, Namibia
"Turning money upside down: Lesson and challenges of the BIG pilot in Namibia"

Professor Olli Kangas, Social Insurance Institution of Finland
"Implementing a basic income experiment in a complex welfare state system: a case of Finland"

Dr Michael Cooke, GiveDirectly
"Testing a Universal Basic Income in Kenya"

Professor Gordana Matković, Center for Social Policy (CSP); Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration (FEFA), Belgrade
"A path toward UBI Experiment in Serbia"

Professor Massoud Karshenas, SOAS, University of London
"On Iran’s universal cash subsidies"

Charlie Young, RSA
"The Scottish experiments in context: towards a typology of basic income"

Timo Verlaat, Utrecht University School of Economics
"Experimenting with Minimum Income Guarantee in the Netherlands: Utrecht"

Professor Maitreesh Ghatak, Economics Department, LSE

Dr Waltraud Schelkle, European Institute, LSE

Steliana Nedera, UNDP

Professor David Graeber, Anthropology Department, LSE

The LSE Citizen’s Basic Income day was organised and supported by the LSE Festival Beveridge 2.0, LSE’s Social Policy Department, LSEE Research on South Eastern Europe, the LSE European Institute, STICERD, the LSE Department of International Development, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Citizen’s Basic Income Trust.