Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 181 posts

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#121

Post by ethanbond »

bee_rider wrote: post #120
ethanbond wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge amounts of the demand just moves $x up the price curve, but that doesn’t suddenly conjure supply into existence, so you have the same demand willing to pay higher prices across the same supply: that’s just higher prices. In HCOL areas the vast majority of rent prices stem from land rent , and that supply is not just less elastic than demand, it’s totally fixed. Most insidiously: the demand that will move most ag…

You are making a lot of predictions from basic principles and very simple models, I’d be amazed if the market was really that simple.

It really is that simple. Here's an analogous example of minimum wage increases: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00941...

Evictions went down for 3 months, then rose again back to their prior level after as rents increased.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#122

Post by ethanbond »

danenania wrote: post #119
ethanbond wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking into account redistribution , the story is even more bleak, not less. Lower income housing prices will rise faster than higher income housing prices.

Why? What makes prices go up given a constant money supply?

The ability to charge more? Analogous example in minimum wage increases: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00941...

Evictions went down for 3 months, then rose again back to their prior levels as landlords increased rents.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#123

Post by tgv »

TrackerFF wrote: post #73

Doesn’t mater if it work flawlessly - right wing politicians pretty much refuse it on an ideological basis alone. I’ve never seen a right-leaning politician, anywhere in the world, give even an ounce of support for UBI projects. It is always met with the knee jerk “people can’t just get money for doing nothing, that’s laziness!” There is no sin worse than so-called laziness, to these people.

Well, that's ideology for you: you oppose things you believe to be bad.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#124

Post by RestlessMind »

underlipton wrote: post #117
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re getting £1000 extra a month and I say your rent is now £1000 extra a month, you can’t and won’t say no. If you say no, I’ll just get someone else in who will give me their free money. As you’re competing with them for the same goods, you’ll have no choice but to pay the same. Meaning it’s made no difference for you as the primary costs in your life are limited by supply. For someone who owns their own house…

That's unrealistic. If it's purely supply and demand, the premium landlords will be able to command out of that 1000 bucks will be somewhat less than the total - and perhaps significantly less, if prospective tenants are savvy enough to hold out collectively. The only way you see the entire thing co-opted for rent is if landlords were to collude and refuse to break rank on pricing. But there's no way that would happe…

> if prospective tenants are savvy enough to hold out collectively

and why would that be the case? Seems like a hard coordination problem to me.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#125

Post by danenania »

ethanbond wrote: post #122
danenania wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What makes prices go up given a constant money supply?

The ability to charge more? Analogous example in minimum wage increases: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00941... Evictions went down for 3 months, then rose again back to their prior levels as landlords increased rents.

Again, it’s not clear that they’d be able to charge more given that less purchasing power for high income earners would push real estate prices (and therefore rents) downward.

In the study you posted, it’s not possible to isolate the variable. Many things could have affected the (minor) changes in rents. Not a good analysis.

Minimum wage increases purchasing power for the employed workers, but also increases unemployment, which has the opposite effect on prices.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#126

Post by mantas »

cc101 wrote: post #57
mantas wrote: post #3

Money flow into poor communities of course works. Relatively little money required on global scale. And they probably were given to the organization in some sort of a grant. What happens if you do this in a major economy using it as the source of money? We know what would happen if a bunch of money were printed. What if it was taken out of taxes and crapton of government programs were cancelled? Especially long term.

Actually we don't know what would happen if a bunch of money were printed. I assume you expect inflation. What actually happens depends on who gets the money. If rich people get it, I would not expect much to happen. If middle income people get it, we could reasonably expect inflation. If low income people get it, that grows the economy even in a major economy. Let me explain. Yes, if you give middle income people mo…

We did that during pandemics. Mostly rich people got it. Low income people got some scraps too. Inflation happened.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#127

Post by mantas »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #12
mantas wrote: post #3

Money flow into poor communities of course works. Relatively little money required on global scale. And they probably were given to the organization in some sort of a grant. What happens if you do this in a major economy using it as the source of money? We know what would happen if a bunch of money were printed. What if it was taken out of taxes and crapton of government programs were cancelled? Especially long term.

I always figured UBI would basically replace and end all government poverty programs at least

That'd be pretty bad. E.g. government program for disabled people giving out wheelchairs. A good wheelchair is fucking expensive. No sane UBI would cover that. Yet not giving out wheelchairs would fuck over some people to say the least.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#128

Post by ethanbond »

danenania wrote: post #125
ethanbond wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to charge more? Analogous example in minimum wage increases: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00941... Evictions went down for 3 months, then rose again back to their prior levels as landlords increased rents.

Again, it’s not clear that they’d be able to charge more given that less purchasing power for high income earners would push real estate prices (and therefore rents) downward. In the study you posted, it’s not possible to isolate the variable. Many things could have affected the (minor) changes in rents. Not a good analysis. Minimum wage increases purchasing power for the employed workers, but also increases unemploy…

The decreased purchasing power at the high end 1) is a consequence of taxes, not UBI itself, and 2) wouldn’t push prices down for lower income housing writ large. At the absolute margins, a high-income earner who is being taxed into lower-income housing is increasing competition among tenants for the same low-income housing, which will increase those prices.

If you want to tax high-income people into lower-income housing then just increase their taxes. What does UBI have to do with any of that?

It’s not possible to “isolate the variable” in any economic study ever, so I suppose both of us will have to argue from conjecture. My conjecture, as a landlord, is that if incomes go up in my market, that is unambiguous signal that I can increase my prices. Your conjecture is “you won’t be able to,” but I already know I’m able to. That is how I’ve already set the price I charge.

The best possible news for me, an absentee landlord, is a big company with high salaries opening an office nearby. Same as every other landlord.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#129

Post by ethanbond »

YiraldyGuber78 wrote: post #65
danenania wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're only considering the first order effect. A tax increase large enough to fund UBI would change the whole economy.

True, instead of just the low-income earners dropping out now that they have an unconditional deposit in their bank every week, now you also have a significant number of middle and high income earners consciously choosing to earn less because of the crushingly high taxes.

And competing for housing with lower-income people.

Re: The first results from the biggest basic income experiment

#130

Post by solardev »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #47

It seems to me that every basic income ‘experiment’ is flawed because they don’t account for the externalities of higher taxes and the fact that the pool of recipients is limited enough that the market is unaffected. Giving a few thousand people a few thousand a month isn’t going to cause much on an impact on inflation and it’s not going to make rents go up across the market. Additionally, others outside the experime…

Wasn't COVID in the US a large scale basic income experiment, with the stimulus checks?
Post reply on HN