IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/29485.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Means testing versus basic income: the (lack of) political support for a universal allowance

Author

Listed:
  • Cremer, Helmuth
  • Roeder, Kerstin

Abstract

This paper studies the political economy of a basic income (BI) versus a means tested welfare scheme. We show in a very simple setting that if society votes on the type of system, its generosity as well as the “severity” of means testing (if any), a BI system could only emerge in the political equilibrium under very strong and empirically implausible conditions. Instead, the political process leads to a means tested system. The necessity to draw political support does affect the design of the system, but it only implies that means testing becomes less severe so that benefits are extended also to themiddle classes. However, a fully universal system is rejected by a majority.

Suggested Citation

  • Cremer, Helmuth & Roeder, Kerstin, 2015. "Means testing versus basic income: the (lack of) political support for a universal allowance," TSE Working Papers 15-588, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:29485
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2015/wp_tseidei_588.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alice Fabre & Stéphane Pallage & Christian Zimmermann, 2014. "Universal Basic Income versus Unemployment Insurance," Cahiers de recherche 1427, CIRPEE.
    2. J. Ignacio Conde-Ruiz & Paola Profeta, 2007. "The Redistributive Design of Social Security Systems," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 686-712, April.
    3. Atkinson, A. B., 1996. "Public Economics in Action: The Basic Income/Flat Tax Proposal," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292166.
    4. Casamatta, Georges & Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre, 2000. "Political sustainability and the design of social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 341-364, March.
    5. Horstschräer, Julia & Clauss, Markus & Schnabel, Reinhold, 2010. "An unconditional basic income in the family context: Labor supply and distributional effects," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-091, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. repec:bla:econom:v:57:y:1990:i:225:p:119-29 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Galasso, Vincenzo & Profeta, Paola, 2007. "How does ageing affect the welfare state?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 554-563, June.
    8. repec:cor:louvrp:-1449 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Gubello, Michele, 2024. "Social trust and the support for universal basic income," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Hamamura, Jumpei & Kurita, Kenichi, 2021. "Does stigma against tax avoidance improve social welfare?," MPRA Paper 107173, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kurita, Kenichi, 2021. "Comparative institutional analysis of poverty-alleviation systems: Does basic income improve social welfare?," MPRA Paper 107177, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. 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.
    5. Alari Paulus, 2016. "The antipoverty performance of universal and means-tested benefits with costly take-up," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/12, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

    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. Gubello, Michele, 2024. "Social trust and the support for universal basic income," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Mathias Kifmann & Kerstin Roeder, 2014. "The Political Sustainability of a Basic Income Scheme and Social Health Insurance," CESifo Working Paper Series 4986, CESifo.
    3. Islam, Nizamul & Colombino, Ugo, 2018. "The case for NIT+FT in Europe. An empirical optimal taxation exercise," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 38-69.
    4. Nizamul Islam & Ugo Colombino, 2018. "The case for negative income tax with flat tax in Europe. An empirical optimal taxation exercise," Working Papers 454, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    5. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2011. "Old-age Social Security vs. Forward Intergenerational Public Goods Provision," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 11-26-Rev, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics, revised Apr 2012.
    6. Stefan Traub & Tim Krieger, 2009. "Wie hat sich die intragenerationale Umverteilung in der staatlichen Säule des Rentensystems verändert? Ein internationaler Vergleich auf Basis von LIS-Daten," LIS Working papers 520, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Jonas Klos & Tim Krieger & Sven Stöwhase, 2022. "Measuring intra-generational redistribution in PAYG pension schemes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 53-73, January.
    8. M.-L. Leroux & P. Pestieau, 2012. "The political economy of derived pension rights," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(5), pages 753-776, October.
    9. D'Amato, Marcello & Galasso, Vincenzo, 2010. "Political intergenerational risk sharing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 628-637, October.
    10. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2009. "The Political Economy of Social Security and Public Goods Provision in a Borrowing-constrained Economy," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 09-38, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    11. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2018. "Structural Labour Supply Models and Microsimulation," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 11(1), pages 162-197.
    12. Jorge Soares, 2011. "Social Security: Universal vs. Earnings-Dependent Benefits," Working Papers 11-14, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    13. Sarah Brockhoff & Stéphane Rossignol & Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2012. "The three worlds of welfare capitalism revisited," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00679066, HAL.
    14. Stefan Traub & Tim Krieger, 2008. "Back to Bismarck? Shifting Preferences for Intragenerational Redistribution in OECD Pension Systems," LIS Working papers 485, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    15. Day, Creina, 2022. "Increasing inequality and voting for basic income: Could gender inequality worsen?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 476-487.
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4596cgacdn8svqf2eog4tv7b2i is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Jorge Soares, 2012. "Social Security: Universal Versus Earnings-dependent Benefits," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(316), pages 611-640, October.
    18. Marko Koethenbuerger & Panu Poutvaara & Paola Profeta, 2008. "Why are more redistributive social security systems smaller? A median voter approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 275-292, April.
    19. Klos, Jonas & Krieger, Tim & Stöwhase, Sven, 2018. "A New Measure of Intra-generational Redistribution within PAYG Pension Schemes and its Application to German Micro-data," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181580, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Habla, Wolfgang & Roeder, Kerstin, 2017. "The political economy of mitigation and adaptation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 239-257.
    21. Toshiki Tamai, 2023. "Social security, economic growth, and social welfare in an overlapping generation model with idiosyncratic TFP shock and heterogeneous workers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1829-1862, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Basic income; Means testing; Political support;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies

    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:tse:wpaper:29485. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.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.