I haven’t looked into it, I think GiveWell recommended charities make up a very small percentage of most countries NGO workforce, so it seems unlikely to be much of a difference.
i agree that is unlikely to make a paradigm shifting different to their cost effectiveness, but i doubt see how the “percentage of an NGO workforce” employed is important to answer this question? i would think about it something like (good done—this negative externality).
That makes sense, thanks David. I note that GiveWell often works with governments to scale up a program (e.g. CHAI), which seems like it would protect against the risk of a decrease in government funding.
On the other hand, New Incentives is opposed by government.
great question Lucas! i think it’s highly unlikely (verging on implausible) that this could make a GiveWell grant net negative—those particular charities do so much good, that even in the unlikely scenario that a GiveWell charity plucked many of their staff from high good-yielding jobs i struggle to imagine it could pull their work to net negative.
I also doubt it could lower their cost effectiveness by more than say 2x, but this is intuition. A 2x negative multiplier though would be significant and important.
Those staff they hire will also be replaced in time as well to some extent, which mitigates some of the harm
like I mentioned above in my reply though this problem could be remedied relatively easily by GiveWell chaities in most cases by making sure they pay less than high government salaries for most of all positions.
This makes sense, thanks Nick! I suspect the larger positive/negative externality is the long-run effect on the strength of government health systems, which seems likely to be positive for most GW-funded programs (since those programs usually leverage government staff and funding).
hey Lucas i think you are often right, although there can be issues with dependency created too. i think factoring in post- program externalities is tricky but definitely worth thinking about qualitatively at the very least
This is somewhat troubling. Do you think this makes some of GiveWell’s grants potentially net negative?
I haven’t looked into it, I think GiveWell recommended charities make up a very small percentage of most countries NGO workforce, so it seems unlikely to be much of a difference.
i agree that is unlikely to make a paradigm shifting different to their cost effectiveness, but i doubt see how the “percentage of an NGO workforce” employed is important to answer this question? i would think about it something like (good done—this negative externality).
That makes sense, thanks David. I note that GiveWell often works with governments to scale up a program (e.g. CHAI), which seems like it would protect against the risk of a decrease in government funding.
On the other hand, New Incentives is opposed by government.
great question Lucas! i think it’s highly unlikely (verging on implausible) that this could make a GiveWell grant net negative—those particular charities do so much good, that even in the unlikely scenario that a GiveWell charity plucked many of their staff from high good-yielding jobs i struggle to imagine it could pull their work to net negative.
I also doubt it could lower their cost effectiveness by more than say 2x, but this is intuition. A 2x negative multiplier though would be significant and important.
Those staff they hire will also be replaced in time as well to some extent, which mitigates some of the harm
like I mentioned above in my reply though this problem could be remedied relatively easily by GiveWell chaities in most cases by making sure they pay less than high government salaries for most of all positions.
This makes sense, thanks Nick! I suspect the larger positive/negative externality is the long-run effect on the strength of government health systems, which seems likely to be positive for most GW-funded programs (since those programs usually leverage government staff and funding).
hey Lucas i think you are often right, although there can be issues with dependency created too. i think factoring in post- program externalities is tricky but definitely worth thinking about qualitatively at the very least
Thanks Nick, what do you mean by issues with dependency? Is that the government becoming dependent on an NGO?