abstract: 'The article describes development of the idea of unconditional basic

  income in some Nordic countries. There were active discussions in the

  early 1980s and in 1992-1994 in Denmark and experiment was conducted on

  the introduction of unconditional basic income in Finland in 2017-2018.

  Basic income has never been seriously considered in Denmark on a

  practical level. For the first time, interest in basic income arose in

  Denmark in the 1980s. Once again, the issue of basic income was on the

  official policy agenda in 1992-1994, when there was extensive discussion

  on this issue. In many ways, these debates were associated with the

  development of the system of unemployment benefits in the country at

  that time and a number of economic, institutional and political

  circumstances. The idea of basic income was considered as a fatal blow,

  either too controversial or unrealistic, showing that it would require

  considerable money. Thus, by the mid-1990s, this idea was categorically

  rejected and disappeared forever from the agenda in Denmark. The

  unconditional basic income in Finland has been discussed for the last 10

  years. It was believed that due to the mass robotization and the

  introduction of artificial intelligence, a huge number of people would

  lose their jobs in the future, and the universal basic income will force

  people to accept temporary contract work which ultimately will increase

  labor mobility and efficiency. By the classical definition unconditional

  basic income is the regular payment of a certain amount of money to each

  member of the community without checking the financial situation or the

  need to do work. The experiment with unconditional basic income in

  Finland did not fully meet this definition. First, only the unemployed

  could take part in it. Secondly, the experiment participants continued

  to receive benefits from other support systems. The authorities decided

  to focus on the unemployed in order to understand whether unconditional

  basic income encourages employment. The 2,000 citizens selected by

  lottery were unemployed, poor, and were between the ages of 25 and 58

  years old. They received 560 euros per month, while the payment did not

  stop even after they found a job. Intermediate results of the experiment

  were almost completely opposite to the expected. Requests of recipients

  of basic income to the labor market have only increased. They said they

  were not ready to grab any job, and made more and more demands. Both for

  employers and for trade unions such an outcome was an unpleasant

  surprise. The preliminary results of the experiment with an

  unconditional basic income showed that in the first year participants in

  the experiment were looking for a little more actively than other

  unemployed people. Although the Finnish authorities did not officially

  comment on anything, all the experts said that the two-year tests showed

  the project''s inconsistency. First, the ``free{''''} money was in fact an

  unconditional unemployment benefit, that is, there was nothing new in

  the proposed version of the universal basic income. Secondly, the

  government did not conceal that the experiment with the basic income was

  not aimed at reducing the number of the poor or fighting inequality -

  its main task was ``promoting employment{''''}. If all citizens received

  unconditional basic income, additional social spending would be about

  5\% of GDP. This is a lot, even taking into account the fact that

  Finland spends about 30\% of GDP on social spending. A universal basic

  income can only be successful if provided on a continuous and universal

  basis.

  But it requires a lot of money and higher taxes which most people

  disagree with.'
affiliation: 'Volkov, AM (Corresponding Author), Russian Acad Sci IMEMO, Primakov
  Natl Res Inst World Econ \& Int Relat, 23 Profsoyuznaya Str, Moscow 117997, Russia.

  Volkov, Aleksey M., Russian Acad Sci IMEMO, Primakov Natl Res Inst World Econ \&
  Int Relat, 23 Profsoyuznaya Str, Moscow 117997, Russia.'
author: Volkov, Aleksey M.
author-email: volkov@imemo.ru
author_list:
- family: Volkov
  given: Aleksey M.
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.20542/0131-2227-2020-64-9-48-52
files: []
issn: 0131-2227
journal: MIROVAYA EKONOMIKA I MEZHDUNARODNYE OTNOSHENIYA
keywords: 'unconditional basic income; unemployment; unemployment benefits;

  experiment; Denmark; Finland'
language: Russian
month: SEP
number: '9'
number-of-cited-references: '11'
pages: 48-52
papis_id: fa46dfdd03849f1f65783f4ef439ab3d
ref: Volkov2020basicincome
times-cited: '0'
title: 'BASIC INCOME IN SOME NORDIC COUNTRIES: THEORY AND PRACTICE'
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000569064000005
usage-count-last-180-days: '4'
usage-count-since-2013: '35'
volume: '64'
web-of-science-categories: International Relations
year: '2020'