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Item From universal basic income to public equity dividends(Auckland University of Technology, Policy Observatory, 2018-03-06) Rankin, Keith; Unitec Institute of TechnologyIn 1991 I wrote advocating ‘a universal tax credit available to every adult – the Universal Basic Income (UBI) – and a moderately high flat tax rate’. In 1996 I started to develop these ideas into a “social accounting framework”. It was only after my 1996 presentation – in Vienna, Austria – that the name ‘Universal Basic Income’ became a popular choice, among a number of other names, for the concept of a universal publicly sourced income payable equally to all citizens. In particular, the name ‘Universal Basic Income’ was popularised through the 2000 Boston Review forum A Basic Income for All by Philippe van Parijs, the leading intellectual in the 1990s of the Basic Income movement. My principal academic output from this project was A New Fiscal Contract? Constructing a Universal Basic Income and a Social Wage, published in 1997 in the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand. In his Boston Review leader, van Parijs suggested “that everyone should be paid a universal basic income (UBI), at a level sufficient for subsistence”. Thus he was advocating a UBI at a specified minimum level. Since then, the meaning of universal basic income has narrowed to mean ‘a universal credit available to every adult, at a level sufficient for subsistence’. It is this final qualifier that compromises the original meaning, and fosters the common criticisms that a UBI is necessarily expensive, and is an invitation to a lifestyle of indolence. I now choose to de-emphasise the name Universal Basic Income; a name that, in the present debate, has come, to too many people, to represent an unaffordable utopian benefit that undermines the work-thrift ethos that they believe underpins economic growth. Indeed, in this context, a universal basic income is sometimes presented as a benefit to replace all other benefits – a maximum as well as a minimum benefit – meaning that people with unusually high needs may be denied public help in meeting those needs. Instead of universal basic income, I now advocate a public equity dividend. I have written a report for the Policy Observatory that details the idea of public equity, and provides a model for how, with minimal transition costs, it might work in New Zealand.Item UBI as a reconceptualisation of income tax(Scoop Publishing Ltd., 2016-03-23) Rankin, Keith; Unitec Institute of TechnologyI am worried that too much of the recent talk around the introduction of a universal basic income has been unhelpful. The concept – defined in 1991 – is still not understood by the politicians and journalists who represent the public's main source of information about policy options. In 1991 I introduced the subject thus: "a universal tax credit available to every adult - the universal basic income (UBI) - and a moderately high flat taxrate", in my University of Auckland Policy Discussion Paper. Through this approach, the basic income can be understood as an alternative form of progressivity of the income tax system, as distinct from the traditional stepwise graduations of income tax rates that we are familiar with. In the newer 'public equity' approach which I have emphasised since 2008, the basic income represents an alternative to income-tax progression rather than a form of progression. It adopts sound equity principles that render the need for tax progressivity redundant. While in monetary terms the result is the same, the public equity concept has the greater capacity to bring about the reconceptualisation of income that twenty-first century economies desperately require. Here I will outline a simple four-step approach to the implementation of the requisite reforms. Any critique of 'universal basic income' needs to address these four steps. I am confident that this implementation programme is immune from any substantial criticism on the usual grounds of affordability and work incentives. It is intellectually dishonest for politicians and journalists to confine their critiques to proposals that are easy targets;proposals that are extreme, unimplementable, or not thought throughItem Universal Basic Income and income tax reform(Auckland University of Technology, 2016-03-26) Rankin, Keith; Unitec Institute of TechnologyThe New Zealand Labour Party is investigating, among other things, the adoption of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a means of ensuring reduced economic insecurity in the face of an increasingly precarious labour market.It is an essential and long-overdue step, appreciating that increases in productivity should be accompanied by the development of income distribution rules that ensure productivity dividends are equitably shared. The problem today is to manage the politics of rights-based welfare, and the widespread misinformation about such universal income solutions. Misinformation is propagated by overenthusiastic supporters, seeking a revolutionary ‘bigbang’ change that will allow people to choose not to engage with the labour market, and presumptive opponents whorestrict their criticisms to these more utopian (and easily criticised) versions of universal income.Item Public equity and tax-benefit reform(Auckland University of Technology, 2017-12-13) Rankin, Keith; Unitec Institute of TechnologyIn this report Keith Rankin, economist at Unitec Institute of Technology, outlines an alternative approach to public accounting, deriving from principles of public equity. He argues for reframing our current system of taxes and benefits as a system of pooling and distributing revenues attributable to public capitals, such as the intellectual and social capital that have built up over time. This reframing process helps us to see that a more equitable system of public revenue distribution can be developed, in stages, as detailed in this report. Keith shows that, at present, a 33 percent income tax can fund a universal payment of $175 per week to every adult meeting economic citizenship criteria. Keith’s previous work on this topic has been published in Social Policy Journal of New Zealand (1997, 1998), Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare (2016), and in multi‑authored books Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of Reform (2012) and Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand (2016). .Item An examination of the ACE market in New Zealand: Efficiency and deemed value mitigation(Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), 2014) Stewart, James; Leaver, Jonathan; Unitec Institute of TechnologyPart One – Efficiency of the ACE Market 1. The ACE market appears to meet the standard conditions for efficient markets. 2. Several information sources exist for the New Zealand Annual Catch Entitlements (ACE) market making information easily accessible. 3. Small fishers are reliant on Licensed Fish Receivers (LFRs) for both ACE information and access to ACE, and are concerned that excessive market power exists in the ACE market – small fishers are at a competitive disadvantage. 4. Larger fishers search for ACE information data more frequently than small fishers and rely on commercially supplied information via FishServe and direct fisher contacts. 5. ACE market participants utilise networks, including quota brokers and LFR–fisher relationships in ACE sourcing and trading. Part Two – Arbitrage in the NZ ACE Market: Deemed Value Mitigation 1. Trade in ACE between overfished fishers for reducing deemed value liability exists in the New Zealand ACE market. 2. Over the seven year period 2005 to 2012 ACE arbitrage trading resulted in savings in deemed value obligations of $1.766 million. 3. The number of fishstocks where arbitrage trading occurs is a small percentage of total fishstocks; in 2012 only seven fishstocks had deemed value savings, through arbitrage, of more than $1000. 4. The general trend in arbitrage trading for 2005 to 2012 is downward – the notable exception being Ling 7