Since participants were given realtively minor one time payments, why would we expect their long term behavior to change?
If one wanted to actually study the potential behavior impact of UBI, would it not have been better to study the potential impact of giving 500 or 1000 bucks a month for a year?
I don't really think any rational actor would be expected to change their behavior if awarded a one time windfall of 2 weeks of wages.
How Effective Is (More) Money? Randomizing Unconditional Cash Transfer Amounts in the US
It's not really about UBI:
"The data are most consistent with the notion that receiving some but not enough money made participants’ needs---and the gap between their resources and needs---more salient, which in turn generated feelings of distress."
"The data are most consistent with the notion that receiving some but not enough money made participants’ needs---and the gap between their resources and needs---more salient, which in turn generated feelings of distress."
Sure, go ahead and distress me by giving me money. I'll somehow deal with it.
This sounds completely condescending. Are the researchers assuming that the participants' moods are more important than being able to pay a few bills? Of course the amounts of money they're talking about aren't life-changing, but if you don't have enough money, every little extra bit helps.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 31.3 ms ] threadIf one wanted to actually study the potential behavior impact of UBI, would it not have been better to study the potential impact of giving 500 or 1000 bucks a month for a year?
I don't really think any rational actor would be expected to change their behavior if awarded a one time windfall of 2 weeks of wages.
How Effective Is (More) Money? Randomizing Unconditional Cash Transfer Amounts in the US
It's not really about UBI:
"The data are most consistent with the notion that receiving some but not enough money made participants’ needs---and the gap between their resources and needs---more salient, which in turn generated feelings of distress."
Sure, go ahead and distress me by giving me money. I'll somehow deal with it.
This sounds completely condescending. Are the researchers assuming that the participants' moods are more important than being able to pay a few bills? Of course the amounts of money they're talking about aren't life-changing, but if you don't have enough money, every little extra bit helps.
The same story was posted and flagged yesterday.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31994390