Economic insecurity is a major problem of the contemporary world. Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been widely advocated as a potentially powerful antidote; however, it remains relatively unpopular because much of the public believes that it disincentivizes work, immorally provides something for nothing, will be spent on drugs and alcohol, and/or is too expensive. Rather than developing yet another academic response to these worries, this paper attempts to design a UBI-type policy that could be highly popular right now, and therefore realistically implemented in the short-term. The policy of Free Groceries for All would entitle each and every citizen to a small amount of money every month, say $50, via an electronic card that can be used for purchasing food and only food. The evidence from the survey data suggests that this policy would be significantly more appealing to the public at large than a conventional UBI, since it substantially mitigates the major concerns.
Impact Factor: 1.6
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Basic Income Studies
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Edited by:
Anne-Louise Haagh
Language:
English
First published:
June 20, 2006
Publication Frequency:
2 issues per year
About this journal
Basic income is a universal income grant available to every citizen without means test or work requirement. Academic discussion of basic income and related policies has been growing in the fields of economics, philosophy, political science, sociology, and public policy over the last few decades — with dozens of journal articles published each year, and basic income constituting the subject of more than 30 books in the last 10 years. In addition, the political discussion of basic income has been expanding through social organizations, NGOs and other advocacy groups. Internationally, recent years have witnessed the endorsement of basic income by grassroots movements as well as government officials in developing countries such as Brazil or South-Africa.
As the community of people working on this issue has been expanding all over the world, incorporating grassroots activists, high profile academics — including several Nobel Prize winners in economics — and policymakers, the amount of high quality research on this topic has increased considerably. In the light of such extensive scholarship on this topic, the need to coordinate research efforts through a journal specifically devoted to basic income and cognate policies became pressing. Basic Income Studies (BIS) is the first academic journal to focus specifically on basic income and cognate policies.
BIS publishes peer-reviewed research papers, book reviews, and short accessible commentaries that discuss a central aspect of the debate on basic income and related schemes. Contributions to BIS will typically discuss the empirical or normative analysis of basic income but may also include articles on related policies such as citizens’ pensions, stakeholder and sabbatical grants, negative income tax or earned income tax credits, and various job guarantee policies. Articles that discuss the state of modern welfare regimes or aspects of social security or employment regulation in more general terms will be considered provided there are clear implications for basic income research. Although BIS places considerable emphasis on rigorous conceptual development and/or thorough empirical analysis, all articles must be written in clear, non-technical language to ensure that they are accessible to non-specialists.
BIS encourages publication both by established scholars and by researchers at the beginning of their careers.
BIS has an international scope, aims to publish original articles and review essays on basic income in all countries, and strongly welcomes papers from non-Western countries.
BIS Essay Prize
Basic Income Studies awards an annual essay prize for the best academic essay on basic income in the preceding year submitted for the prize.
The deadline for nominations for the BIS Essay Prize is October 31, of the calendar year of the prize.
Papers to be considered for the BIS Essay Prize can be nominated by a recognized group or organization hosting an academic conference at which papers on basic income are presented in the calendar year of the prize. Recognition by the editors of BIS is a precondition for nomination of papers. The Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and the BIG Conference (formerly the "North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress (NABIG)") are automatically recognized, and papers presented at these conferences should be submitted by the authors by the deadline. Organizers of other conferences and panels* should request recognition from the BIS editors before the deadline.
Submission: Send essays by email in Word or PDF format to mhoward@maine.edu, with "BIS Essay Prize 2022" in the subject heading. For the purpose of determining eligibility, indicate in the body of your email at which conference your paper was presented.
A panel of judges chosen by the editors of BIS will choose the best English language essay from authorized submissions received by the deadline.
*A recognized group (other than BIEN or The BIG Conference) representing a conference focused on basic income may nominate up to 5 papers. A recognized coordinator for a panel on basic income at a conference may nominate one paper from the panel.
In recognizing a group, BIS editors may require involvement in the nomination process by one or more members of the BIS editorial board.
Your Benefits
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September 23, 2025
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Open AccessExploring Student Perspectives on Universal Basic Income: Prioritising Compassion or ConditionalityAugust 26, 2025
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Requires Authentication UnlicensedAutomation and Support for a Universal Basic Income: Awareness, Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Income and EducationLicensedMay 23, 2025
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Requires Authentication UnlicensedInsights into the Human Face of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot: Fragments of a Shattered Social Experiment in Thunder Bay, CanadaLicensedMay 23, 2025
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Open AccessJohn Maynard Keynes on Universal Basic IncomeJanuary 1, 2000
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January 1, 2000
| Journal Impact Factor | 1.6 | 2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025) |
| 5-year Journal Impact Factor | 1.7 | 2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025) |
| Journal Citation Indicator | 0.37 | 2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025) |
| CiteScore | 2.3 | 2024, Scopus (Elsevier B.V., 2025) |
| SCImago Journal Rank | 0.380 | 2024, SJR (Scimago Lab, 2025; Data Source: Scopus) |
| Source Normalized Impact per Paper | 0.829 | 2024, CWTS Journal Indicators (CWTS B.V., 2025; Data Source: Scopus) |
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION GUIDELINES
This document provides authors with details on policy, copyediting, formatting, and layout requirements pertaining to final manuscript submission to this journal. All manuscripts must have correct formatting to be considered for publication.
The manuscript submission and review process is handled through ScholarOne Manuscripts. All manuscripts should be submitted to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/dgbis.
EDITORIAL POLICY
Unpublished material: Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described is not copyrighted, published or submitted elsewhere, except in abstract form. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors approve the manuscript before its submission.
Copyright: Manuscripts are accepted on condition of transfer of copyright (for U.S. government employees: to the extent transferable) to Basic Income Studies. Once the manuscript is accepted, it may not be published elsewhere without the consent of the copyright holders.
COPYEDITING/LANGUAGE EDITING
The ScholarOne system has been designed to improve the scholarly publication process for authors. Among the many improvements we offer over traditional journals, the most significant is that we have dramatically shortened the period between the initial submission and the final publication of a peer-reviewed article. Much of this time savings is due to the innovative use of electronic publication. These innovations, however, require certain changes in the way authors need to prepare accepted manuscripts for electronic publication.
De Gruyter does provide a light copyedit of manuscripts for this journal, but authors remain responsible for being their own copyeditors.
LANGUAGE EDITING
All manuscripts must be written in clear and concise English. If you have reasons to doubt your proficiency with respect to spelling, grammar, etc. (e.g., because English is not your native language), then you may wish to employ—at your expense—the services of a professional language editor.
Please get in touch with the Language Editors directly to discuss details.
• Alexandra Griswold
dralex321@gmail.com
Areas of expertise: public policy, political science, education, economics, social sciences, humanities, ethics
• Cyndy Brown
browncyndy@yahoo.com
Areas of expertise: political science, social sciences, humanities, ethics
• Donna Reeder
Reeder Literary Services
Areas of expertise: political science, economics, mathematical economics, natural sciences, social sciences, technology, law, humanities, liberal arts, literary studies, health and medicine
• Dorothy Schepps
dschepps2@gmail.com
Areas of expertise: political science, emergency management, homeland security, community/land use planning, law, economics, cyber terrorism, and cyber security
• Jane Cotnoir
jane.cotnoir@gmail.com
Areas of expertise: Local government management, international crime and terrorism, emergency/disaster management, humanities, social science
• Patience Kramer
patience.kramer@att.net
Areas of expertise: Health and Medicine (CAM and drug policy and analysis), Economics and Business (with a focus on marketing)
• Steve Peter
speter@mac.com
Areas of expertise: LaTeX, Linguistics, economics, mathematics
CONTENT AND STRUCTURE
• Manuscripts should be submitted as Word, docx, rtf, or LaTex files
• If your manuscript contains special characters, equations, etc. please make sure to also supply a PDF version as a reference file. This will be used to ensure any formatting issues introduced during the submission process can be corrected accurately.
• Write your article in English
• Use the following document structure:
1. Introduction (titling this section is optional)
2. Subsequent sections which include tables, references to figures and figure captions.
3. Appendices (if any).
4. Explanation of symbols mentioned in the text.
5. References - Include a proper bibliography following the guidelines in the References section below.
6. Please supply figures in separate files, not embedded in the text. Please see the “Tables, Figures, and Graphs” section below for more detailed instructions regarding figure submission.
BOOK REVIEWS
• Book reviews must start with the citation of the book at the top of the first page, and are normally limited to about 1200 words.
LATEX TEMPLATE
For authors working with LaTeX files, please see the related files and documentation at http://www.degruyter.com/staticfiles/pdfs/DeGruyter_LaTeX_template_package.zip, including a template for author use and instructions for working with the files.
FONTS
• Only use Unicode fonts (e.g. Times New Roman, Arial)
COLORED TEXT
• Set the font color to black for the majoriy of the text. De Gruyter encourages authors to take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures, maps, images, and graphs. However, you need to appreciate that this will cause some of your readers problems when they print the document on a black and white printer. For this reason, you are advised to avoid the use of colors in situations where their translation to black and white would render the material illegible or incomprehensible.
EMPHASIZED TEXT, TITLES, AND FOREIGN TERMS
• To indicate text you wish to emphasize, use italics rather than underlining. The use of color to emphasize text is discouraged.
• Foreign terms should be set in italics rather than underlined.
• Titles of books, movies, etc., should be set in italics rather than underlined.
ABBREVIATIONS
The use of abbreviations and acronyms is permitted provided they are defined the first time they are used.
HEADINGS
Headings (e.g., title of sections) should be distinguished from the main body text:
• Clearly indicate the heading hierarchy.
• Be consistent in whether or not you use headline case, or you capitalize the first word and leave the rest in lower-case.
FOOTNOTES
• Footnotes must appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced rather than at the end of the paper.
• Excessively long footnotes are better handled in an appendix.
TABLES, FIGURES & GRAPHS
• General requirements: All illustrations must be of reproduction-ready quality and in EPS, TIF, or JPG format. They will be reduced in size to fit, whenever possible, the width of a single column. Lettering of all figures within the article should be uniform in style (preferably a sans serif typeface like Helvetica) and of sufficient size (ca. 8 pt.).Uppercase letters A, B, C, etc. should be used to identify parts of multi-part figures. Cite all figures in the text in numerical order. Indicate the approximate placement of each figure. Do not embed figures within the text body of the manuscript; submit figures in separate files. Only figures (graphs, line drawings, photographs, etc) should be labeled as ‘figures’, not tables or equations.
• Halftone figures (grayscale and color) should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and be of good contrast. Authors are welcome to submit color illustrations. We are pleased to offer both Print and Online publication of color figures free of charge.the services of a professional language editor.
• Line drawings must be of reproduction-ready quality. Please note that faint shading may be lost upon reproduction. When drawing bar graphs, use patterning instea of grey scales. Lettering of all figures should be uniform in style. A resolution of 1200 dpi is recommended.
• Figure legends: Provide a short descriptive title and a legend to make each figure self-explanatory on separate pages. Explain all symbols used in the figures. Remember to use the same abbreviations as in the text body.
• Permissions: It is the authors’ responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce original or modified material that has been previously published. Any permissions fees are the responsibility of the author(s).
• Offprints: The electronic files of typeset articles in Adobe Acrobat PDF format are provided free of charge; corresponding authors receive notification that their article has been published online. Paper offprints can be ordered in addition; an offprint order form will accompany the page proofs and should be completed and returned with the corrected proofs immediately.
• Please do not embed figures in the text. Instead, they should be referenced in the text and submitted in separate files.
• Number tables consecutively using Arabic numerals. Tables should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text. Provide a short descriptive title, column headings, and (if necessary) footnotes to make each table self-explanatory. Refer to tables in the text as Table 1, 2, etc. Use Table 1, etc. in the table legends.
• Tables must not be displayed as images.
MATHEMATICS AND EQUATIONS
• Roman letters used in mathematical expressions as variables must be italicized. Roman letters used as part of multi-letter function names should not be italicized. Subscripts and superscripts must be a smaller font size than the main text.
• Type short mathematical expressions inline.
• Longer expressions must appear as display math, as must expressions using many different levels (e.g., such as fractions).
• Ensure that Equations are typed or created with a plug-in, such as Word Formula Editor or MathType. Mathematical expressions must not be displayed as images
• Important definitions or concepts can also be set off as display math.
• Number your equations sequentially.
• Insert a blank line before and after each equation.
• Whether equation numbers are on the right or left is the choice of the author(s). However, make sure to be consistent in this.
• When proofing your document, pay particular attention to the rendering of the mathematics, especially symbols and notation drawn from other-than-standard fonts.
REFERENCES
Please use the APA Style author-date system for parenthetical citation in the text and the related reference list entry. For more specific details please visit: http//www.apastyle.org/ and click on "Learning APA Style."
Editors
Louise Haagh, University of York, UK
Troy Henderson, The University of Sydney, Australia
Fabio Waltenberg, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Book Review Editor
Monica Clua Losada, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Senior Consultant Editors
Jurgen De Wispelaere, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Michael Howard, University of Maine, Maine, USA
Karl Widerquist, Georgetown University, Qatar
Xavier Fontcuberta, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
Associate Editors
Simon Eli Birnbaum, Stockholm University, Sweden
Jim Bryan, Manhattanville College, USA
David Casassas, University of Barcelona, Spain
Harry Dahms, University of Tennessee, USA
Kruti Dholakia, University of Texas-Dallas, USA
Julieta Elgarte, National University of La Plata, Argentina
Manfred Füllsack, University of Vienna, Austria
Loek Groot, University of Utrecht, Netherlands
Ingrid Hohenleitner, University of Hamburg, Germany
Michael Lewis, Hunter College, New York, USA
Sascha Liebermann, Alanus University for Arts and Social Sciences, Alfter, Germany
Rubén Lo Vuolo, Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Public Policies (CIEPP), Argentina
Søren Flinch Midtgaard, University of Aarhus, Denmark
James Mulvale, University of Manitoba, Canada
José Antonio Noguera, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Melanie O’Gorman, The University of Winnipeg, Canada
Cristian Pérez Muñoz, Washington University in Saint Louis, USA
Ingrid Robeyns, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
Corina Rodríguez, CIEPP, Argentina
Shlomi Segall, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Yannick Vanderborght, Facultes universitaires Saint-Louis, Belgium
Almaz Zelleke, New York University, USA
International Advisory Board
Jordi Arcarons, University of Barcelona, Spain
John Baker, University College Dublin, Ireland
Brian M. Barry, Columbia University, USA
María Julia Bertomeu, National University of La Plata, Argentina
Keith Dowding, Australian National University, Australia
Claude Gamel, Université Paul Cézanne d'Aix-Marseille, France
Robert E. Goodin, Australian National University, Australia
Nanna Kildal, University of Bergen, Norway
Sally Lerner, University of Waterloo, Canada
Rubén Lo Vuolo, Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Public Policies (CIEPP), Argentina
Remedios Melero Melero, CSIC, Spain
Michael Opielka, University of Applied Sciences Jena, Germany
Carole Pateman, University of California - Los Angeles, USA
Steve Pressman, Monmouth University, USA
Francisco Ramos Martin Catalan, Ministry of Employment, Spain
Daniel Raventós, University of Barcelona, Spain
Guy Standing, University of Bath, UK
John Tomlinson, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Robert van der Veen, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Philippe Van Parijs, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Stuart White, University of Oxford, UK
Erik Olin Wright, University of Wisconsin, USA
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Supplementary Materials
Topics
Journal information
Additional information
eISSN:
1932-0183
Language:
English
Publisher:
De Gruyter
Additional information
First published:
June 20, 2006
Publication Frequency:
2 issues per year
eISSN:
1932-0183
