I’m a big fan of this report and will probably recommend it to interested people as the best of the cost-effectiveness models I have seen on corporate welfare commitments.
I’m very glad for the”Ways this estimate could be misleading” section. I think its very important to make these wider considerations clear; they have not been so clear in previous cost-effectiveness estimates. I also like that you make it clear how you think that these considerations weigh up with the pluses and minuses system.
It’s great that this information on various uncertainties is included and yet you are still able to provide a useable estimate of cost-effectiveness (that excludes these indirect effects). I would probably lean towards making this result less prominent in the write-up, e.g. not including it in the title. I do think that, despite your clarity on the uncertainties, it is easy for readers to pick up and focus on the final estimate and then disregard the rest of the post.
Glad you liked it :) I added a sentence about indirect effects in the first paragraph. I see your point about the title but I chose to leave it as it is because:
I think that people don’t expect cost-effectiveness estimates to take all the indirect effects into account anyway. That said, I am afraid of it being misinterpreted as an estimate of what an additional donated dollar would achieve.
However, anyone who would make important decisions based on this estimate would hopefully read more than just the title anyway.
I wanted to grab the attention of some EAs who would not consider helping welfare reforms otherwise (and hence wouldn’t open an article called “Cost-effectiveness estimate of corporate animal welfare campaigns”).
I wanted the result to be prominently featured because I’d rather the common knowledge within EA would be “it affects 9-120 years per dollar but there are many complications and indirect effects” rather than “it’s unclear what the cost-effectiveness is”. The former at least let’s people compare the scale of the effects with other interventions.
I don’t want to change the title now because it could confuse some forum readers into thinking this is a new article, and make the article more difficult to find for readers who remember the old title.
I’m a big fan of this report and will probably recommend it to interested people as the best of the cost-effectiveness models I have seen on corporate welfare commitments.
I’m very glad for the”Ways this estimate could be misleading” section. I think its very important to make these wider considerations clear; they have not been so clear in previous cost-effectiveness estimates. I also like that you make it clear how you think that these considerations weigh up with the pluses and minuses system.
It’s great that this information on various uncertainties is included and yet you are still able to provide a useable estimate of cost-effectiveness (that excludes these indirect effects). I would probably lean towards making this result less prominent in the write-up, e.g. not including it in the title. I do think that, despite your clarity on the uncertainties, it is easy for readers to pick up and focus on the final estimate and then disregard the rest of the post.
Glad you liked it :) I added a sentence about indirect effects in the first paragraph. I see your point about the title but I chose to leave it as it is because:
I think that people don’t expect cost-effectiveness estimates to take all the indirect effects into account anyway. That said, I am afraid of it being misinterpreted as an estimate of what an additional donated dollar would achieve.
However, anyone who would make important decisions based on this estimate would hopefully read more than just the title anyway.
I wanted to grab the attention of some EAs who would not consider helping welfare reforms otherwise (and hence wouldn’t open an article called “Cost-effectiveness estimate of corporate animal welfare campaigns”).
I wanted the result to be prominently featured because I’d rather the common knowledge within EA would be “it affects 9-120 years per dollar but there are many complications and indirect effects” rather than “it’s unclear what the cost-effectiveness is”. The former at least let’s people compare the scale of the effects with other interventions.
I don’t want to change the title now because it could confuse some forum readers into thinking this is a new article, and make the article more difficult to find for readers who remember the old title.