Karl Widerquist is a Visitng Associate Professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Theory from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from the City University of New York. He is coauthor of Economics for Social Workers and coeditor of the Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee. He has contributed to journals such as Politics, Philosophy, and Economics; Political Studies; and the Eastern Economic Journal. His homepage is www.widerquist.com/karl.
Political Theory
How the Sufficiency Minimum Becomes a Social Maximum, Utilitas (2010)
This article argues that, under likely empirical conditions, sufficientarianism leads not to an easily achievable...
What Does Prehistoric Anthropology have to do with Modern Political Philosophy? Evidence of Five False Claims, USBIG Discussion Paper (2010)
A Dilemma for Libertarianism, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (2009)
This article presents a dilemma for libertarianism. It argues that libertarian principles of acquisition and...
The Physical Basis of Voluntary Trade, Human Rights Review (2008)
The article discusses the conditions under which can we say that people enter the economic...
Libertarianism, The International Encyclopedia of Public Policy (2008)
This is an encyclopedia entry on libertarianism covering right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism, and libertarian socialism.
Basic Income
The Basic Income Guarantee and the goals of equality, efficiency, and environmentalism (with Michael A. Lewis) (2009)
The most important issue in equality – if not in all economic policy – is...
The Physical Basis of Voluntary Trade, Human Rights Review (2008)
The article discusses the conditions under which can we say that people enter the economic...
An Introduction to Citizens Capital Accounts, Proceedings of the Green Economics Conference: Social Aspects of Green Economics (2008)
Problems with Wage Subsidies: Phelps's economic discipline and undisciplined economics, International Journal of Green Economics (2008)
This paper discusses problems with wage subsidy proposals, specifically focusing on the proposal in Rewarding...
The Basic Income Guarantee and the goals of equality, efficiency, and environmentalism (with Michael Lewis), Environment and Employment: A Reconciliation (2008)
Labor Economics
The Basic Income Guarantee and the goals of equality, efficiency, and environmentalism (with Michael A. Lewis) (2009)
The most important issue in equality – if not in all economic policy – is...
Problems with Wage Subsidies: Phelps's economic discipline and undisciplined economics, International Journal of Green Economics (2008)
This paper discusses problems with wage subsidy proposals, specifically focusing on the proposal in Rewarding...
A Failure to Communicate: What (If Anything) Can we Learn from the Negative Income Tax Experiments?, The Journal of Socio-Economics (2005)
The U.S. and Canadian governments conducted five negative income tax experiments between 1968 and 1980....
A Retrospective on the Negative Income Tax Experiments: Looking Back at the Most Innovative Field Studies in Social Policy, The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee (2005)
Public Choice
History of Political Thought
Lockean Theories of Property: Justifications for Unilateral Appropriation, Public Reason (2010)
Although John Locke’s theory of appropriation is undoubtedly influential, no one seems to agree about...
Opinions, Reviews, and Editorials
A Day-Long Discussion of “the Alaska Model” at the University of Alaska-Anchorage (2011)
On April 22, 2011, I had the privilege of attending a conference at the University...
Two Memoirs Tell the History of the Alaska Dividend (2011)
Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend is closer to a basic income than almost any other policy...
Lessons of the Alaska Dividend (2010)
At a time when progressive social policies are under attack across the industrialized world, the...
I Have a Basic Income (2010)
In a period of about eight months, I managed to save and invest enough money...
The Economic Lesson of 1938 (2009)
Economic events of 1938 are relevant to our handling of the global recession today.