Good point. The study undermines the traditional economic narrative that sweatshop jobs are clearly better than workers’ alternatives—e.g. it would challenge this statement in the original post:
Economists across the political spectrum have pointed out that for many sweatshop workers the alternatives are much, much worse.
But it doesn’t go so far as to show that sweatshops are clearly worse than workers’ alternatives, either, which is what sweatshop opponents often claim. So it seems to be a middle-of-the-road finding that supports your idea that the Ethiopian labour market was actually more efficient than people had previously assumed. It’s still notable because it challenges conventional wisdom on both sides of the debate.
The study had a third “entrepreneurship” condition that involved giving people $300 plus some business training. Unsurprisingly (imo), participants under that condition did better than both the sweatshop and control conditions. So while I don’t think boycotting companies that use sweatshops is likely to be a very effective way of doing good, I don’t think going out of your way to support sweatshops is likely to be worthwhile, either—there are likely to be better ways to promote economic development.
So while I don’t think boycotting companies that use sweatshops is likely to be a very effective way of doing good, I don’t think going out of your way to support sweatshops is likely to be worthwhile, either—there are likely to be better ways to promote economic development.
Agreed! I recommend donating to the High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) from the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research (CEARCH) to increase human and animal welfare as cost-effectively as possible. Joel Tan, CEARCH’s founder and managing director, guessed on 28 May 2025 donating to HIPF was 9 to 15 times as cost-effective as donating to GiveWell’s top charities, for which the mean cost of saving a life from 2021 to 2023 was4.13 k$/life. Belows is some context about CEARCH’s cost-effectiveness estimates.
[...] CEARCH estimated the cost-effectiveness accounting only for effects on humans, as a fraction of that of GiveWell’s top charities, of donating to Giving What We Can (GWWC) in 2025 to be 13, that of “advocacy for top sodium control policies to control hypertension” to be31, that of advocating for “increasing the degree to which governments respond with effective food distribution measures, continued trade, and adaptations to the agricultural sector” in “global agricultural crises [such as nuclear and volcanic winters]” to be33 (although I estimated this should be 12.4 % as high), and that of “advocacy for sugar-sweetened beverages [SSBs] taxes to control diabetes mellitus type 2” to be55. Joel disclaimed he thinks the cost-effectiveness estimates from CEARCH’s deep reports, such as the ones I just mentioned, as well as (similarly elaborate) estimates from other impact-focussed evaluators, are 3 times as high as they should be. This largely explains why the mean between Joel’s lower and upper bound for the marginal cost-effectiveness of HIPF is only 21.8 % (= 12⁄55) of CEARCH’s highest cost-effectiveness estimate respecting advocacy for taxing SSBs.
Good point. The study undermines the traditional economic narrative that sweatshop jobs are clearly better than workers’ alternatives—e.g. it would challenge this statement in the original post:
But it doesn’t go so far as to show that sweatshops are clearly worse than workers’ alternatives, either, which is what sweatshop opponents often claim. So it seems to be a middle-of-the-road finding that supports your idea that the Ethiopian labour market was actually more efficient than people had previously assumed. It’s still notable because it challenges conventional wisdom on both sides of the debate.
The study had a third “entrepreneurship” condition that involved giving people $300 plus some business training. Unsurprisingly (imo), participants under that condition did better than both the sweatshop and control conditions. So while I don’t think boycotting companies that use sweatshops is likely to be a very effective way of doing good, I don’t think going out of your way to support sweatshops is likely to be worthwhile, either—there are likely to be better ways to promote economic development.
Agreed! I recommend donating to the High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) from the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research (CEARCH) to increase human and animal welfare as cost-effectively as possible. Joel Tan, CEARCH’s founder and managing director, guessed on 28 May 2025 donating to HIPF was 9 to 15 times as cost-effective as donating to GiveWell’s top charities, for which the mean cost of saving a life from 2021 to 2023 was 4.13 k$/life. Belows is some context about CEARCH’s cost-effectiveness estimates.