I agree it’s the main point of the post (we want to choose interventions in a way that maximizes the total effect). I thought it was a unanimous opinion but apparently, it’s not?
I think most people would agree that we want to maximise mean(“effect”) for “cost” ⇐ “maximum cost”. The crucial question is how to handle this optimisation problem when “effect”, “cost” and “maximum cost” are distributions. The alternatives seem to be:
Maximising mean(“effect”) for mean(“cost”) ⇐ mean(“maximum cost”), which seems equivalent to maximising mean(“effect”)/mean(“cost”), as proposed in this post.
Maximising mean(“effect”/”cost”), as proposed in some comments of this post.
Thinking at the margin, these approaches seem equivalent.
I think most people would agree that we want to maximise mean(“effect”) for “cost” ⇐ “maximum cost”. The crucial question is how to handle this optimisation problem when “effect”, “cost” and “maximum cost” are distributions. The alternatives seem to be:
Maximising mean(“effect”) for mean(“cost”) ⇐ mean(“maximum cost”), which seems equivalent to maximising mean(“effect”)/mean(“cost”), as proposed in this post.
Maximising mean(“effect”/”cost”), as proposed in some comments of this post.
Thinking at the margin, these approaches seem equivalent.