IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qed/wpaper/1371.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Designing A Basic Income Guarantee For Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Robin Boadway

  • Katherine Cuff

    (McMaster University)

  • Kourtney Koebel

    (Queen's University)

Abstract

We propose mechanism for implementing a two-stage harmonized Basic Income Guarantee with federal and provincial components. In Stage One, the federal government replaces its refundable and nonrefundable tax credits with an income-tested basic income delivered through the income tax system. The reform is revenue-neutral. In Stage Two, each province decides whether to implement a provincial basic income guarantee that is harmonized with the federal one but allows province-specific basic income levels. The provincial basic income replaces provincial refundable and nonrefundable tax credits as well as welfare and disability transfers, and is also revenue-neutral. All social services and contributory social insurance programs remain intact. An illustrative calculation using Statistical CanadaÂ’s SPSD/M model shows the financial feasibility of a national BIG of $20,000 per adult adjusted for family size with a benefit reduction rate of 30%.

Suggested Citation

  • Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff & Kourtney Koebel, 2016. "Designing A Basic Income Guarantee For Canada," Working Paper 1371, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    • Handle: RePEc:qed:wpaper:1371
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econ.queensu.ca/sites/econ.queensu.ca/files/qed_wp_1371.pdf
    File Function: First version 2016
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fleurbaey,Marc & Maniquet,François, 2011. "A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521715348, January.
    2. Robert McClelland & Shannon Mok, 2012. "A Review of Recent Research on Labor Supply Elasticities: Working Paper 2012-12," Working Papers 43675, Congressional Budget Office.
    3. Boadway, Robin & Jacquet, Laurence, 2006. "Optimal Marginal and Average Income Taxation under Maxi-min," Queen's Economics Department Working Papers 273549, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    4. Wayne Simpson & Harvey Stevens, 2015. "The Impact of Converting Federal Non-Refundable Tax Credits into Refundable Credits," SPP Research Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 8(30), August.
    5. Boadway, Robin & Jacquet, Laurence, 2008. "Optimal marginal and average income taxation under maximin," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 425-441, November.
    6. Evelyn L. Forget, 2011. "The Town with No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 37(3), pages 283-305, September.
    7. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael & Tuomala, Matti, 1994. "Labor Supply and Targeting in Poverty Alleviation Programs," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 8(2), pages 191-211, May.
    8. Atkinson, Anthony B., 2015. "Inequality: what can be done?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101810, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Maitreesh Ghatak & François Maniquet, 2019. "Universal Basic Income: Some Theoretical Aspects," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 895-928, August.
    2. Henry de Frahan, Lancelot & Maniquet, François, 2021. "Preference responsibility versus poverty reduction in the taxation of labor incomes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Laurence Jacquet & Dirk Van de Gaer, 2015. "Politiques fiscales optimales pour les bas revenus et principe de compensation," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 66(3), pages 579-600.
    5. Boadway,Robin & Cuff,Katherine, 2022. "Tax Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108949453, January.
    6. Robin Boadway & Motohiro Sato, 2015. "Optimal Income Taxation with Risky Earnings: A Synthesis," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(6), pages 773-801, December.
    7. Marc Fleurbaey & Giacomo Valletta, 2018. "Fair optimal tax with endogenous productivities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(6), pages 849-873, December.
    8. VALLETTA, Giacomo, 2012. "Health, fairness and taxation," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2012016, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    9. Valletta, G., 2012. "Health, fairness and taxation," Research Memorandum 017, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    10. Philippe Mongin & Marcus Pivato, 2021. "Rawls’s difference principle and maximin rule of allocation: a new analysis," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1499-1525, June.
    11. Robin Boadway, 2012. "Recent Advances in Optimal Income Taxation," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 200(1), pages 15-39, March.
    12. Martin Ravallion, 2015. "Inequality when Effort Matters," NBER Working Papers 21394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Laurence Jacquet & Robin Boadway, Craig Brett, 2015. "Optimal Nonlinear Income Taxes with Compensation," THEMA Working Papers 2015-15, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    14. Brett, Craig & Weymark, John A., 2016. "Voting over selfishly optimal nonlinear income tax schedules with a minimum-utility constraint," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 18-31.
    15. Laurence Jacquet & Etienne lehmann & Bruno Van Der Linden, 2012. "Signing distortions in optimal tax or other adverse selection models with random participation," THEMA Working Papers 2012-27, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    16. Jacquet, Laurence & Lehmann, Etienne & Van der Linden, Bruno, 2013. "Optimal redistributive taxation with both extensive and intensive responses," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(5), pages 1770-1805.
    17. Ravi Kanbur & Matti Tuomala, 2011. "Charitable conservatism, poverty radicalism and inequality aversion," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 417-431, September.
    18. Laurent Simula & Alain Trannoy, 2023. "Bunching in rank-dependent optimal income tax schedules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(1), pages 237-263, January.
    19. da Costa, Carlos E. & Maestri, Lucas J. & Santos, Marcelo R., 2022. "Redistribution with labor market frictions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    20. Ravi Kanbur & Matti Tuomala, 2010. "Charitable Conservatism, Poverty Radicalism and Good Old Fashioned Inequality Aversion," Working Papers 1076, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    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:qed:wpaper:1371. 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: Mark Babcock (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/qedquca.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.