I donât see how this is reinventing the wheel? The post makes many references to development economics (11 mentions to be precise). It was not an instance of independently developing something that ended up being close to development economics.
That still does not seem like reinventing the wheel to me. My read of that post is that itâs not saying âEAs should do these analyses that have already been done, from scratchâ but something closer to âEAs should pay more attention to strategies from development economics and identify specific, cost-effective funding opportunities thereâ. Unless you think development economics is solved, there is presumably still work to be done, e.g., to evaluate and compare different opportunities. For example, GiveWell definitely engages with experts in global health, but still also needs to rigorously evaluate and compare different interventions and programs.
And again, the article mentions development economics repeatedly and cites development economics textsâwhy would someone mention a field, cite texts from a field, and then suggest reinventing it without giving any reason?
My experience is that many global-poverty-focused EA likes to refer to their field as âglobal health and developmentâ but the existing literature in institutional development economics has been mostly ignored in favor of constantly retreading the same old streetlight-illuminated ground of bednets and deworming. This may in part because it might be problematic for EA Political Orthodoxy. @Ben Kuhn has made this point cogently here and here.
Iâm not sure I understood your point. What charities or programs do you think GiveWell should be funding, but arenât, that are supported by âexisting literature in institutional development economicsâ?
Thatâs what I mean by âconstantly retreading the streetlight-illuminated groundâ. And lack of established charities hasnât stopped the longtermist wing (and to a certain extent the animalist wing) of EA before?
Is it possible weâre talking to past each other? âInstitutional reformsâ isnât something a donor can spend money or donate to. But EA global health efforts are open to working on policy change; an example is the Lead Exposure Elimination Project.
I still feel that you havenât really answered the question, what do you think GiveWell should recommend, which they currently arenât?
I donât know how to make it clearer. Longtermist nonprofits get to research world problems and their possible solutions without having to immediately show a randomized controlled trial following the ITN framework on policies that donât exist yet. Why is the same thing seemingly impossible for dealing with global poverty?
The academic fields most relevant to GH&D work are fairly mature. Because of that, itâs reasonable for GH&D to focus less on producing stuff that is more like basic research /â theory generation (academia is often strong in this and had a big head start) and devote its resources more toward setting up a tractable implementation of something (which is often not academiaâs comparative advantage for various reasons).
GH&D also has a clearly successful baseline with near-infinite room for more funding, and so more speculative projects need to clear that baseline before they become viable. You havenât identified any specific proposed area to study, but my suspicion is that most of them would require sustained political commitment over many years in the LDC and/âor large cash infusions beyond the bankroll of EA GH&D to potentially work.
GH&D also has a clearly successful baseline with near-infinite room for more funding, and so more speculative projects need to clear that baseline before they become viable.
Again, that is exactly what I am calling âconstantly retreading the streetlight-illuminated groundâ. I do not think most institutional development economists would endorse the idea that LDCs can escape the poverty trap through short-term health interventions alone.
I donât think most development economists would endorse the idea that a viable pathway exists for LDCs to escape the poverty trap based on ~$600-800MM/âyear in EA funding (even assuming you could concentrate all GH&D funding on a single project) and near-zero relevant political influence, either. And those are the resources that GH&D EA has on the table right now in my estimation.
To fund something at even the early stages, one needs either the ability to execute any resulting project or the ability to persuade those who do. The type of projects youâre implying are very likely to require boatloads of cash, widespread and painful-to-some changes in the LDCs, or both. Even conditioned on a consensus within development economics, I am skeptical that EA has that much ability to get Western foreign aid departments and LDC politicians to do what the development economists say they should be doing.
Okay, so why is the faction of EA with ostensibly the most funds the one with ânear-zero relevant political influenceâ while one of the animalist factionâs top projects is creating an animalist movement in East Asia from scratch, and the longtermist faction has the president of RAND? That seems like a choice to divide influence that way in the first place.
I donât see how this is reinventing the wheel? The post makes many references to development economics (11 mentions to be precise). It was not an instance of independently developing something that ended up being close to development economics.
The post suggests that 4 person-years of âcareful analysisâ will find âpromising funding opportunities in this spaceâ.
Development economics does that careful analysis already, why would we make breakthroughs reinventing it?
That still does not seem like reinventing the wheel to me. My read of that post is that itâs not saying âEAs should do these analyses that have already been done, from scratchâ but something closer to âEAs should pay more attention to strategies from development economics and identify specific, cost-effective funding opportunities thereâ. Unless you think development economics is solved, there is presumably still work to be done, e.g., to evaluate and compare different opportunities. For example, GiveWell definitely engages with experts in global health, but still also needs to rigorously evaluate and compare different interventions and programs.
And again, the article mentions development economics repeatedly and cites development economics textsâwhy would someone mention a field, cite texts from a field, and then suggest reinventing it without giving any reason?
This job posting seems related.
My experience is that many global-poverty-focused EA likes to refer to their field as âglobal health and developmentâ but the existing literature in institutional development economics has been mostly ignored in favor of constantly retreading the same old streetlight-illuminated ground of bednets and deworming. This may in part because it might be problematic for EA Political Orthodoxy. @Ben Kuhn has made this point cogently here and here.
Iâm not sure I understood your point. What charities or programs do you think GiveWell should be funding, but arenât, that are supported by âexisting literature in institutional development economicsâ?
Institutional reforms to help LDCs escape the poverty trap.
That doesnât sound like a charity or charitable program to me?
Thatâs what I mean by âconstantly retreading the streetlight-illuminated groundâ. And lack of established charities hasnât stopped the longtermist wing (and to a certain extent the animalist wing) of EA before?
Establishing a new charity is one thing, but I havenât seen you propose a charitable program or intervention yet?
Why are the animalist and longtermist wings of EA the only wings that consider policy change an intervention?
Is it possible weâre talking to past each other? âInstitutional reformsâ isnât something a donor can spend money or donate to. But EA global health efforts are open to working on policy change; an example is the Lead Exposure Elimination Project.
I still feel that you havenât really answered the question, what do you think GiveWell should recommend, which they currently arenât?
I donât know how to make it clearer. Longtermist nonprofits get to research world problems and their possible solutions without having to immediately show a randomized controlled trial following the ITN framework on policies that donât exist yet. Why is the same thing seemingly impossible for dealing with global poverty?
The academic fields most relevant to GH&D work are fairly mature. Because of that, itâs reasonable for GH&D to focus less on producing stuff that is more like basic research /â theory generation (academia is often strong in this and had a big head start) and devote its resources more toward setting up a tractable implementation of something (which is often not academiaâs comparative advantage for various reasons).
GH&D also has a clearly successful baseline with near-infinite room for more funding, and so more speculative projects need to clear that baseline before they become viable. You havenât identified any specific proposed area to study, but my suspicion is that most of them would require sustained political commitment over many years in the LDC and/âor large cash infusions beyond the bankroll of EA GH&D to potentially work.
Again, that is exactly what I am calling âconstantly retreading the streetlight-illuminated groundâ. I do not think most institutional development economists would endorse the idea that LDCs can escape the poverty trap through short-term health interventions alone.
I donât think most development economists would endorse the idea that a viable pathway exists for LDCs to escape the poverty trap based on ~$600-800MM/âyear in EA funding (even assuming you could concentrate all GH&D funding on a single project) and near-zero relevant political influence, either. And those are the resources that GH&D EA has on the table right now in my estimation.
To fund something at even the early stages, one needs either the ability to execute any resulting project or the ability to persuade those who do. The type of projects youâre implying are very likely to require boatloads of cash, widespread and painful-to-some changes in the LDCs, or both. Even conditioned on a consensus within development economics, I am skeptical that EA has that much ability to get Western foreign aid departments and LDC politicians to do what the development economists say they should be doing.
Okay, so why is the faction of EA with ostensibly the most funds the one with ânear-zero relevant political influenceâ while one of the animalist factionâs top projects is creating an animalist movement in East Asia from scratch, and the longtermist faction has the president of RAND? That seems like a choice to divide influence that way in the first place.