GiveDirectly is leading the world’s largest and longest term experiment to date studying the effects of a Universal Basic Income. As part of this $30M project, we have already distributed millions of dollars to 20,000 individuals living across 197 villages, and an additional 100 villages have been surveyed as a control group. Some individuals will receive payments for 12 years, and the full study will last at least that long. Initial results on the effects of UBI during COVID-19 were released in September 2020; additional results from the first endline survey are expected early next year.
In addition to GiveDirectly’s co-founders, Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus, the research team includes leading economists like Abhijit Banerjee, co-founder of J-PAL and a professor at MIT and Tavneet Suri, Scientific Director for J-PAL Africa, also at MIT. The study design was also led by Alan Krueger, a former Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and professor at Princeton. Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), an independent non-profit, will conduct any research-related surveying of cash-recipients and members of the control group. Click below to learn more.