The Alaska Model: A Republican Perspective

Abstract

Since 1982, each Alaskan has received an equal share of the returns to the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF), a publicly owned investment portfolio funded by the state’s oil revenue. These returns come in the form of a Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) allocating an annual grant of roughly $1,200 to each man, woman, and child who meets the residency requirement.2 The PFD is the sole example of a large-scale economic policy combining resource taxation—effectively transforming a depleting natural resource into a “sovereign wealth fund”—with the individual and unconditional distribution of (part of) the revenue stream to all resident shareholders. We call this the Alaska model.KeywordsEqual ShareBasic IncomeSovereign Wealth FundDemocratic ControlAbject PovertyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.