BASIC INCOME AROUND THE WORLD: THE UNEXPECTED BENEFITS OF UNCONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS

  • Replacing existing welfare systems with a universal basic income has the potential to streamline bureaucracy, eliminate welfare traps, and reduce poverty.
  • The idea is being trialled by governments across the world including Scotland, United States, Canada, and Finland. These studies contribute to a growing body of evidence on the effects of basic income on employment and poverty.
  • While recently advocated by Labour’s John McDonnell, basic income has a rich intellectual heritage on the free market right. Nobel Prize winning economists such as Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek and George Stigler have advocated replacing existing welfare systems with a negative income tax (a form of basic income).
  • Automation and globalisation will deliver massive benefits for ordinary people, but they also run the risk of creating short-term mass unemployment. Existing welfare systems are ill-suited to handle the transition and mass retraining programmes rarely deliver their promise.
  • There is strong evidence that unconditional cash transfers are incredibly successful at alleviating poverty in the developing world. With studies in Kenya, Namibia, India and Uganda supporting the view that simply giving cash is one of the most effective forms of development aid.

[ > Adam Smith Institute — 2018 ]

Looming driving bans in times of declining nitrogen oxides emissions

leipzig

Nitrogen oxides emissions (NOx) in Germany plunged by 44% between 1995 and 2016.

Road traffic recorded the sharpest decline (-62%).

After the decision of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, however, certain diesel vehicles can be banned from inner cities.

Apparently, there is a conflict of interests between the human right to clean ambient air and the protection of diesel car owners against an erosion of their vehicles‘ value.

In our view, this conflict could be resolved over time.

To this end, policymakers could, for instance, introduce a Blue Badge for low-emission diesel passenger cars, which is tied to a transitional period for older vehicles.

[ > Deutsche Bank Research — March 16 2018 ]