Two years ago, I blogged about a working paper on conditions for welfare and high school completion by Simen Markussen, Knut Røed and myself. The paper is now finally accepted for publication and is forthcoming in Labour Economics. The final version is here, freely downloadable until the beginning of October. An updated working paper version can be found here.
Via MarginalRevolution’s assorted links and others, a short BBC article about a pilot project in Finland on universal, basic income. Economist Ohto Kanninen, coincidentally a fellow student of mine from graduate school, describes the project:
The prime minister has expressed support for a limited, geographical experiment. Participants would be selected from a variety of residential areas.
Mr Kanninen proposes testing the idea by paying 8,000 people from low income groups four different monthly amounts, perhaps from €400 to €700.
They also have the Prime Minister on board:
Prime Minister Juha Sipila has praised the idea. “For me, a basic income means simplifying the social security system,” he said.
This sounds really exciting, and I cannot wait to see the working paper.
Ø-blog 