A basic income would encourage more people to work, the thinking goes, as opposed to disincentivizing them under the current system by taking away their benefits when they start to earn an income.

The experiment, which will be designed in the latter part of next year, will help the Finnish government understand whether this program would work on a national level, says Ohto Kanninen, an economist at Finnish think tank, Tänk, which is collaborating with the country’s government and several universities on the experiment.

“What would be the impact of a basic income to employment in Finland – positive or negative? We can’t really foresee how people would behave with a basic income,” Dr. Kanninen told the BBC.

Kela, the country’s social security administration, says 70 percent of respondents in its recent survey were in favor of payments of €1,000 per month.