As the idea of giving every American a monthly cheque migrates from the political fringes toward the centre of policy debates, one hedge-fund executive is contributing research on whether, and how, such a scheme might actually work.

Bob Jain, 48, created the Jain Family Institute, a nonprofit applied-research organisation, in 2014 to investigate, among other things, programmes for “guaranteed income”. Better known as Universal Basic Income, the idea is to give money to people, regardless of income bracket, at regular intervals.