Good question! There has been very little research on the dividend. An ISER study years ago found that the dividend was keeping lower income people from leaving, but did not find evidence of many people moving here for the dividend. However, the point of my column is that without being set at a certain amount (with an inflation escalator), the dividend would perpetually rise until it is enough to influence many people to come. It could easily grow to $5,000 a person, or even more. That surely would be enough to get families to come to Alaska.