Bruegel Event Recordings

The idea of Universal Income has been around for years, proposed by many economists and sociologists around the world, but for a long time it was not tested at a large scale. However, some experiments are now taking place in Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, UK and Canada. A variety of Basic Income proposals are circulating today: its proponents claim that universal basic income (UBI) would provide benefits in terms inclusive growth and equality, but also in terms of efficiency of public policies given that UBI also could replace existing social policies. It could also provide some answer to the questions related to the future of employment (uberisation and robotisation of labour) At this event, we held a discussion on what could be its main benefits but also what could be possible disadvantages that could arise from the implementation of UBI (for instance in terms of disincentive to work). We also discussed how the Universal income might be implemented, examining particular proposals and experiments in more