Basic income in Belgium: stress-testing basic income in the digital era. (BABEL)

A basic income (BI) is a radical departure from traditional public welfare provision as it severs the link between contribution and benefit on the one hand and between need and benefit on the other hand. Although a BI is often presented as a simple idea, discussing concrete policy proposals quickly ends in a Tower of Babel-like argument. In many of these debates, it appears that proponents, and respectively opponents, often have different kinds of BI schemes in mind when advocating for or criticizing the idea. It is, however, quite obvious that the actual outcomes of a BI will be highly dependent on the concrete policy design in terms of entitlement, eligibility criteria, benefit levels, financing, and implementation trajectories. These aspects will substantially influence the extent to which a BI may discourage paid work or any work, increases or reduces gender inequalities in work and care, and end the myriad of problems associated with means-tested social benefits. Unfortunately, for many of these outcomes we lack empirical scrutiny. This is the main focus of the BAsic income in BELgium (BABEL) project.

The BABEL project aims to narrow the gap between claim and reality with regard to BI outcomes. The project has several objectives. First, it aims to investigate the actual labour supply effects of BI. To this end, a quasi-experimental approach is applied in which we use administrative records to estimate the labour supply effects of BI based on what gets closest to a real world basic income situation: the Belgian Win-for-Life lottery. Second, to gauge the potential outcomes of BI and its different policy versions  a comprehensive microsimulation exercise is conducted to estimate the first-order income distributive and budgetary effects of a set of BI proposals and their effect on work incentives in Belgium. Third, by carrying out factorial vignette experiments, the project aims to gain deeper insight into public support for the implementation of a variety of basic income schemes in Belgium, and whether and to what extent public support of basic income schemes depends on the outcomes, financing and implementation details. Fourth, BABEL will pay due attention to the on-the-ground implementation and the technical and administrative feasibility of a selection of basic income policy proposals, and it will gauge to what extent political parties and social partners as gatekeepers in the Belgian welfare state are willing to support the implementation of these schemes. Finally, the project will present a blueprint of pathways for basic income policy proposals that (1) are likely to garner sufficient support by the general public and by social partners; (2) lead to better outcomes in terms of social protection and work incentives; and (3) can inspire feasible welfare reform in Belgium.