lost_send_berries

As I understand it, GiveDirectly wouldn't cut off somebody who is spending their money on drink. It is about giving people the freedom to use the money in the best way for them, not intruding into their lives to check they are doing the "right thing".

They had four reasons to think they got honest responses about alcohol and tobacco.

1. The survey was done after the money had all been given out.
2. "the survey team was kept distinct from the intervention team, and denied any association when asked (although it remains possible that at least some respondents nevertheless suspected a connection)"
3. "in the case of educational and health outcomes, we find very little impact, despite the fact that if respondents were motivated to appear in a good light to the survey team, they would have had an incentive to overstate the benefits of the program in terms of these outcomes" -- IOW, people didn't lie about education and health, so they probably didn't lie about alcohol and tobacco.
4. "we used a list randomization questionnaire in the endline to complement the direct elicitation of alcohol and tobacco expenditure. In this method, respondents are not directly asked whether they consumed alcohol or tobacco, but instead are presented with a list of five common activities such as visiting friends or talking on the phone, and asked how many of these activities they performed in the preceding week. The respondents were divided into three groups: one group was presented only with this short list; a second group was presented with the short list and an extra item, consuming alcohol; and for a third group, the extra item was consuming tobacco. Comparing the means across the different groups allows us to estimate the proportion of respondents who consumed alcohol and tobacco, without any respondent having to explicitly state that they did so. Table 2 in the Online Appendix suggests not only that there was not treatment effect on alcohol and tobacco consumption when using this method, but additionally shows that the estimates of alcohol and tobacco consumption obtained through the list method are very similar (and if anything, lower) than those obtained through direct elicitation. Note, however, that a concern with this method is that it injects noise into the data, and the results are therefore imprecise." -- so in other words, people asked directly about alcohol and tobacco gave similar answers to the people asked indirectly, suggesting people weren't that touchy about the subject.

This is all from the research paper.

Why is your climate change chapter still so bad? I have the Kindle edition and you still have that error about solar panels causing more global warming than they prevent, even though it's been shown by many climate scientists that that's completely false. (Edit: actually, it's a Kindle "popular highlight")

There's still no mention of the issues with geoengineering like changing rainfall patterns, ocean acidification etc.

And you still have vague anti-science statements like "Everyone in the room agrees that the Earth has been getting warmer and they generally suspect that human activity has something to do with it" (a vast understatement) and vague anti-science-communication statements like "Any religion, meanwhile, has its heretics, and global warming is no exception" and "the standard global warming rhetoric in the media is oversimplified and exaggerated".

As well as the quotes from Myhrvold claiming that climate models are wrong.

Surely you realise that people are walking away with the wrong impression?

Did you meet anybody on the inside who claimed and you believed they were innocent but plea bargained?

Is a game good just because it convinces you to spend time with it? That would make Farmville a good game and Portal and Braid bad games.

how do we address specific social problems within a UBI framework?

How do we address specific social problems without a UBI framework? I don't see a reason for them to be different.

How do we manage the inherently distortionary effects of the taxation needed to finance a UBI?

Same as any taxation? It would depend on the attitude of the country what form of taxation they would accept.

How we tailor to specific needs--including those that exceed any UBI transfer payments?

That would depend on the form of the UBI. It doesn't necessarily mean eliminating disability, but (eg) in the US a lot of people are on disability even though they want to work, because it gives them an income.

How does a monthly UBI check relate to debt? What effect would a UBI have on low-price goods?

Hopefully people will be able to save up money and have less of a need to borrow? Other than that, I don't see what you are asking. As for low-price goods, I don't think it makes much of a difference in a developing country as the goods are coming from the local/national economy anyway. In a developed country, I guess you are referring to the idea that inflation in prices of necessities will claw back some of the extra money given to poor people. Well, it's a theory that might have some validity (although minimum wage studies suggest it doesn't). But ultimately, GiveDirectly is just a charity that does its own thing and can't really answer that.

There are a bunch of concerns beyond just a conservative critique that equally applies to the rest of the welfare state.

There's your answer then... the welfare state already exists and is doing well if you ask me. Or poorly if you ask other people.