Behavioural and Welfare Effects of Basic Income Policies: An A Simulation for European Countries

In this paper we develop and estimate a microeconometric model of household labour supply for four European countries representative of different economies and welfare policy regimes: Denmark, Italy, Portugal and United Kingdom. We then simulate, under the constraint of constant net tax revenue, the effects of 10 hypothetical tax-transfer reforms which include various alternative versions of a Basic Income policy. We produce various indexes and criteria according to which the reforms can be ranked. It turns out that in every country there are many reforms that can improve upon the current status according to many criteria and that might be “politically” feasible. Overall, the non meanstested policies have a better performance and progressive tax rules are somehow more efficient than the flat tax rules.