I’ve wondered this a lot myself and find this lack of clarity to always be an issue. I personally think something in the realm of 9 makes the most sense, and I personally define “$X of value” as “as good as shifting $X from a morally neutral use to being donated to GiveDirectly”. It helps that I roughly expect GiveDirectly to have linear returns, even in the range of billions spent. But I do try to make this explicit in a footnote or something when I discuss value.
Another good idea in the realm of 9 is how GiveDirectly defines their ROI:
We measure philanthropic impact in units of the welfare gained by giving a dollar to someone with an annual income of $50,000, which was roughly US GDP per capita when we adopted this framework.
I’ve wondered this a lot myself and find this lack of clarity to always be an issue. I personally think something in the realm of 9 makes the most sense, and I personally define “$X of value” as “as good as shifting $X from a morally neutral use to being donated to GiveDirectly”. It helps that I roughly expect GiveDirectly to have linear returns, even in the range of billions spent. But I do try to make this explicit in a footnote or something when I discuss value.
Another good idea in the realm of 9 is how GiveDirectly defines their ROI: