We organized two evaluations of the paper: “Universal Basic Income: Short-Term Results from a Long-Term Experiment in Kenya”. The paper presents an important (and impressive) randomized controlled trial (RCT) that evaluates the impact of different timing structures of unconditional cash transfers (or universal basic income) in Kenya. Both evaluations agree that the work is likely to make a critical impact on what works in poverty reduction or alleviation within the realm of development economics. The first evaluator, coming from a policy background, suggested the results – involving multiple outcome comparisons across multiple arms – could be presented more clearly. We, the managers suspect an online dashboard would be particularly helpful here. They also requested “an explicit comparison of (income+asset) gains to transfer costs for policymakers”. The second evaluation highlighted causal inference issues, self-reporting bias, and the limitations of this study for considering generalized UBI in macro equilibrium . They argue that the claims around the effects of UBI on well-being and consumption merit a more careful explanation of mechanisms; they suggest the authors could use aspects of program design (e.g., access to mental health services etc.) to decompose these effects
By the way, the paper “Universal Basic Income: Short-Term Results from a Long-Term Experiment in Kenya” was evaluated by the Unjournal—see
Evaluation summary and ratings
Evaluation 1 (from a policymaker/funder)
Evaluation 2 (economic policy, statistics); a commended evaluation
From our general abstract: