Thanks for the feedback on RSL/​WASSH—that’s really useful, and something I’ll definitely factor in at the next research stage!
On governmental/​implementation costs—I definitely agree that this should be factored in, but just to clarify, the analysis does take this into account, using WHO estimates of the per capita cost of implementing WHO Best Buy policies on sodium (USD 0.03) and on alcohol taxes (USD 0.004, as an imperfect proxy for sodium taxes. Multiplying this with the average country’s population size, as well as the expected years in which implementation will occur (as a function of various discounts like policy reversal rates etc), we get the long-term cost of implementation in the average country.
To this, two discounts are applied: (a) a discoutn for the probability that advocacy succeeds (such that the implementation costs are incurred at all); and (b) a discount for government spending in the average country being far less counterfactually valuable than EA funding which would otherwise have gone to top GiveWell charities or the like. In my experience, discount (b) tends to mean that governmental costs aren’t as significant a factor as they would theoretically be—but it does depend on the country of implementation (e.g. its fantastically cost effective to get rich world governments to do stuff given the counterfactuals; less so if you’re draining sub-Saharan African governments’ budgets).
Hi Sophie,
Thanks for the feedback on RSL/​WASSH—that’s really useful, and something I’ll definitely factor in at the next research stage!
On governmental/​implementation costs—I definitely agree that this should be factored in, but just to clarify, the analysis does take this into account, using WHO estimates of the per capita cost of implementing WHO Best Buy policies on sodium (USD 0.03) and on alcohol taxes (USD 0.004, as an imperfect proxy for sodium taxes. Multiplying this with the average country’s population size, as well as the expected years in which implementation will occur (as a function of various discounts like policy reversal rates etc), we get the long-term cost of implementation in the average country.
To this, two discounts are applied: (a) a discoutn for the probability that advocacy succeeds (such that the implementation costs are incurred at all); and (b) a discount for government spending in the average country being far less counterfactually valuable than EA funding which would otherwise have gone to top GiveWell charities or the like. In my experience, discount (b) tends to mean that governmental costs aren’t as significant a factor as they would theoretically be—but it does depend on the country of implementation (e.g. its fantastically cost effective to get rich world governments to do stuff given the counterfactuals; less so if you’re draining sub-Saharan African governments’ budgets).