ECONOMIC RESPONSE TO A GUARANTEED ANNUAL INCOME - EXPERIENCE FROM CANADA AND THE UNITED-STATES

This article reviews research from the five income-maintenance experim ents in Canada and the United States. After sketching the historical a nd political context of the experiments, we compare their designs and discuss some important analytic difficulties. Our primary focus is the work-incentive issue, both nonstructural estimates of the experimenta l effects and elasticity estimates of structural labor-supply function s. We provide initial estimates of nonstructural and structural models for the Canadian experiment. We discuss more briefly some non-work-re sponse findings associated with a guaranteed annual income and offer s ome personal comments on social experimentation and the policy process .