Two economists debate whether a universal basic income would be an improvement over the current welfare system.

Bryan Caplan, PhD

George Mason University

Bryan Caplan is a senior scholar at the Mercatus Center and a professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. He writes EconLog, named by the Wall Street Journal as a top economics blog. He received his PhD in economics from Princeton University and his BA in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Karl Widerquist, PhD

Georgetown School of Foreign Service-Qatar

Karl Widerquist is an associate professor at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service at Qatar. He holds a doctorate in political theory from Oxford University and another in economics from the City University of New York. He is the author of Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income and coeditor of Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research and The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee. He was a founding editor of the journal Basic Income Studies.