IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp2123.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Basic Income and Labor Supply: Evidence from an RCT in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Bernhard
  • Sandra Bohmann
  • Susann Fiedler
  • Maximilian Kasy
  • Jürgen Schupp
  • Frederik Schwerter

Abstract

How does basic income (a regular, unconditional, guaranteed cash transfer) impact labor supply? We show that in search models of the labor market with income effects, this impact is theoretically ambiguous: Employment and job durations might increase or decrease, match surplus might be shifted to workers or employers, and worker surplus might be reallocated between wages and job amenities. We thus turn to empirical evidence to study this impact. We conducted a pre-registered RCT in Germany, starting 2021, where recipients received 1200 Euro/month for three years. We draw on both administrative and survey data, and find no extensive margin (employment) response, and no impact on on job transitions from either non-employment or employment. We do find a small statistically insignificant intensive margin shift to parttime employment, which implies an excess burden (reduction of government revenues) of ca 7.5% of the transfer. We furthermore observe a small increase of enrollment in training or education.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Bernhard & Sandra Bohmann & Susann Fiedler & Maximilian Kasy & Jürgen Schupp & Frederik Schwerter, 2025. "Basic Income and Labor Supply: Evidence from an RCT in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2123, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2123
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.960424.de/dp2123.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, December.
    2. Paul Milgrom & Ilya Segal, 2002. "Envelope Theorems for Arbitrary Choice Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 583-601, March.
    3. Simon Jäger & Christopher Roth & Nina Roussille & Benjamin Schoefer, 2024. "Worker Beliefs About Outside Options," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(3), pages 1505-1556.
    4. Chetty, Raj, 2006. "A general formula for the optimal level of social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1879-1901, November.
    5. Sandra Bohmann & Susann Fiedler & Maximilian Kasy & Jürgen Schupp & Frederik Schwerter, 2025. "Cash Transfers, Mental Health and Agency: Evidence from an RCT in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 11989, CESifo.
    6. Henrik J. Kleven, 2021. "Sufficient Statistics Revisited," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 515-538, August.
    7. Damon Jones & Ioana Marinescu, 2022. "The Labor Market Impacts of Universal and Permanent Cash Transfers: Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 315-340, May.
    8. Christopher J. Flinn, 2006. "Minimum Wage Effects on Labor Market Outcomes under Search, Matching, and Endogenous Contact Rates," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(4), pages 1013-1062, July.
    9. Abhijit Banerjee & Paul Niehaus & Tavneet Suri, 2019. "Universal Basic Income in the Developing World," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 959-983, August.
    10. Emmanuel Saez, 2001. "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 205-229.
    11. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    12. Ioana Marinescu, 2018. "No Strings Attached: The Behavioral Effects of U.S. Unconditional Cash Transfer Programs," NBER Working Papers 24337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Sarah Baird & David McKenzie & Berk Özler, 2018. "The effects of cash transfers on adult labor market outcomes," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 8(1), pages 1-20, December.
    14. repec:iab:iabfda:202502(de is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Rema Hanna & Gabriel E. Kreindler & Benjamin A. Olken, 2017. "Debunking the Stereotype of the Lazy Welfare Recipient: Evidence from Cash Transfer Programs," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 32(2), pages 155-184.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sandra Bohmann & Susann Fiedler & Maximilian Kasy & Jürgen Schupp & Frederik Schwerter, 2025. "Cash Transfers, Mental Health and Agency: Evidence from an RCT in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 11989, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dami'an Vergara, 2022. "Minimum Wages and Optimal Redistribution," Papers 2202.00839, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    2. Juliana MESÉN VARGAS & Bruno VAN DER LINDEN, 2017. "Is there always a trade-off between insurance and incentives? The case of unemployment with subsistence constraints," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2017014, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Kory Kroft & Kavan Kucko & Etienne Lehmann & Johannes Schmieder, 2020. "Optimal Income Taxation with Unemployment and Wage Responses: A Sufficient Statistics Approach," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 254-292, February.
    4. Nishant Yonzan & Laxman Timilsina & Inas Rashad Kelly, 2020. "Economic Incentives Surrounding Fertility: Evidence from Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend," NBER Working Papers 26712, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Manuela A. de Paz-Báñez & María José Asensio-Coto & Celia Sánchez-López & María-Teresa Aceytuno, 2020. "Is There Empirical Evidence on How the Implementation of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) Affects Labour Supply? A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-36, November.
    6. Kasy, Maximilian, 2018. "Optimal taxation and insurance using machine learning — Sufficient statistics and beyond," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 205-219.
    7. Yonzan, Nishant & Timilsina, Laxman & Kelly, Inas Rashad, 2024. "Economic incentives surrounding fertility: Evidence from Alaska’s permanent fund dividend," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    8. Ferey, Antoine, 2022. "Redistribution and Unemployment Insurance," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 345, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    9. Jan Gromadzki, 2021. "Labor supply effects of a universal cash transfer," IBS Working Papers 02/2021, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    10. Laurence Jacquet & Etienne Lehmann, 2021. "Optimal Income Taxation with Composition Effects," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 1299-1341.
    11. Mikhail Golosov & Luigi Iovino, 2021. "Social Insurance, Information Revelation, and Lack of Commitment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(9), pages 2629-2665.
    12. Albert Jan Hummel, 2021. "Unemployment and tax design," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-061/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Verlaat, Timo & Todeschini, Federico & Ramos, Xavier, 2023. "The Employment Effects of Generous and Unconditional Cash Support," IZA Discussion Papers 15976, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Kasy, Maximilian, 2022. "Who wins, who loses? Identification of conditional causal effects, and the welfare impact of changing wages," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 155-170.
    15. Cuong Viet Nguyen & Finn Tarp, 2023. "Cash Transfers and Labor Supply: New Evidence on Impacts and Mechanisms," DERG working paper series 23-18, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Development Economics Research Group (DERG).
    16. Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2016. "Should Unemployment Insurance Vary with the Unemployment Rate? Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1092-1124.
    17. Felix J. Bierbrauer & Pierre C. Boyer & Emanuel Hansen, 2023. "Pareto‐Improving Tax Reforms and the Earned Income Tax Credit," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(3), pages 1077-1103, May.
    18. Colin D. Wooldridge & Andrew F. Johnson & Katherine J. Roberto, 2024. "Something for Everyone? Addressing Conservative Opposition to Universal Basic Income Programmes," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 24(1), pages 68-76, January.
    19. Lavecchia, Adam M., 2020. "Minimum wage policy with optimal taxes and unemployment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    20. repec:osf:socarx:bgcjk_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Vargas Juliana Mesén & Linden Bruno Van der, 2019. "Why Cash Transfer Programs Can Both Stimulate and Slow Down Job Finding," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 8(1), pages 1-27, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.