Abstract
A basis of fundamental knowledge of different basic income approaches (BI) is essential to be elaborated for enhancing the prevalent debates on BI as an important solution on social transformation. Aiming to contribute to the current knowledge gaps and future research agendas on BI, this paper elaborates on BI theories and BI empirical cases, linkage, and gaps between these two parts. A total of 152 pieces of literature on BI theories and BI empirical cases were intensively reviewed, which includes BI definitions, positive and negative conceptual impacts of BI argued to bring to human society from social, economic, and policy-and-governance perspectives, as well as the implementation and the outcomes of 15 selected BI empirical cases. Our findings indicate that BI definitions remain imprecise, and the BI empirical cases are implemented in diverse ways. We also identified that many conceptual impacts of BI were not achieved in the reviewed BI empirical cases. We further argue that the policy environment for implementing BI has not been entirely created at present, and a key issue is that the ambiguity between the BI theories and BI empirical cases causes difficulties to generate widely agreed principles guiding the implementation of BI. This paper suggests that future studies on BI should focus more on revising existing BI definitions which need to be simplified, detailed, and unified, generating universal principles guiding the implementation of BI, and developing indicators measuring BI's consequences.
Highlights
The concept of basic income (BI) is nothing new; the formation of this idea can be traced back to several centuries ago
The resurgence of widespread attention on BI in recent years coincided with increasing concerns to bring social and economic transformation at the contemporary time; one of the approaches contributing to addressing technological unemployment in a future society shaped by the development of the digital economy (Pulkka 2017; Caputo and Lewis 2016)
The third section reviews the definition of BI and its conceptual impacts BI on the human society identified in the theoretical discussion correspondingly
Summary
The concept of basic income (BI) is nothing new; the formation of this idea can be traced back to several centuries ago. BI empirical cases were occasionally implemented at different times in the past several decades around the world, and these empirical cases have provided limited but valuable empirical evidence to testify those conceptual impacts of BI in the theoretical discussion. We attempt to examine theories of BI, including its definition and its conceptual impacts on the human society discussed in the literature. A comprehensive and detailed elaboration on BI theories and BI empirical cases would contribute to future researches on BI by providing a robust theoretical ground. The third section reviews the definition of BI and its conceptual impacts BI on the human society identified in the theoretical discussion correspondingly. The content, including detailed information on their implementation and the outcomes of 15 BI empirical cases, is reviewed. The fifth and last section discusses the limitations, findings and concludes the paper, respectively
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