Public management frontiers in guaranteed income programs: Advancing implementation

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• Author: Evan Berman,Lauro Gonzalez,Eduardo H. Diniz,Mário Aquino Alves
• Date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13771

VIEWPOINT

Public management frontiers in guaranteed income programs:

Advancing implementation

Evan Berman

1

| Lauro Gonzalez

2

| Eduardo H. Diniz

3,4

|

M

ario Aquino Alves

5

1

Department of Public Administration at

Fundaç˜

ao Getulio Vargas (FGV EAESP), S˜

ao

Paulo, SP, Brazil

2

Department of Finance and Center for

Microfinance and Financial Inclusion Studies,

FGV EAESP, S˜

ao Paulo, SP, Brazil

3

Escola de Administraç˜

ao de Empresas de S˜

ao

Paulo at Fundaç˜

ao Getulio Vargas (FGV EAESP)

and Center for Microfinance and Financial

Inclusion Studies, S˜

ao Paulo, SP, Brazil

4

Coppead, Universidade Federal do Rio de

Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

5

Department of Public Administration and

Center for Public Administration and

Government at FGV EAESP, S˜

ao Paulo, SP, Brazil

Correspondence

Evan M. Berman, Department of Public

Administration at Fundaç˜

ao Getulio Vargas (FGV

EAESP), S˜

ao Paulo, SP, Brazil.

Email: evanmberman@gmail.com;

evan.berman@fgv.br

Abstract

This viewpoint analyzes recent experiments in guaranteed income (GI) projects

and identifies implementation issues that extend the frontiers of public adminis-

tration. GI programs provide low-income individuals with substantial and regular

cash with few or no strings or conditions attached and are being used to assist the

lower income population, including informal workers who are left out of many

government programs. The following implementation issues are discussed as fron-

tiers in current public administration research and theory: (1) increasing the federal

role in vertical collaboration; (2) improving data integration across levels of gov-

ernment; and (3) finding new solutions to financial and political sustainability. As

GI programs and experiments proliferate, it becomes critical to examine imple-

mentation and not just outcomes or impact.

Evidence for practice

•The integration of guaranteed income with other social policies demands a ver-

tical collaboration process led by the federal government.

•As GI programs expanded, a higher government will need to assess and ensure

the capacity of lower governments to implement GI programs.

•Data for GI require integration within and across levels of governments.

•Permanent funding sources for guaranteed income programs require new

forms of funding which may include taxation of luxury goods, e-commerce, and

natural resource rents.

INTRODUCTION

Innovative programs often push frontiers in public

administration. This viewpoint focuses on the case of

guaranteed income (GI) programs which seek to pro-

vide individuals with substantial and regular cash with

few or no strings or conditions attached. GI programs

are part of a larger family of cash transfer

(CT) programs that have long been central in the

social policies of developing (Mill

an et al., 2019) and

developed countries, including the United States

(Cahyadi et al., 2020). While the relevance of GI pro-

grams grew significantly during the pandemic period,

they are also increasingly embraced as a flexible and

efficient way for improving social equity by ensuring

that a larger share of the lower income populations

receive a minimum level of support (Chrisp & de

Wispelaere, 2023), including, within this group,

increasingly larger numbers of informal and gig

workers in different countries (Vallas & Schor, 2020).

In this viewpoint, the authors examine recent GI initia-

tives and draw lessons about implementation issues that

push and extend current frontiers in public administra-

tion. Specifically, the authors discuss the following

three issues in public administration using lessons and

examples from current GI initiatives: (1) increasing federal

roles in vertical collaboration; (2) improving data integra-

tion across levels of government; and (3) finding new

solutions to financial and political sustainability.

New policy ideas are often controversial, and GI

programs are no exception. GI programs may be viewed

as undeserved welfare handouts that may create long-

term dependence of government transfers (Banerjee

et al., 2019) or as policies that offer necessary assistance

to citizens in labor market transitions (Yang et al., 2021).

While such normative debates continue, they are now

Received: 10 April 2023 Revised: 1 September 2023 Accepted: 24 October 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13771

Public Admin Rev. 2024;84:785–795. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar © 2023 American Society for Public Administration. 785