Thanks for this great comment! I agree with you on neglectedness, I think the field is so broad that by looking at high-level funding we’re probably counting a lot of stuff that isn’t relevant directly to the question of “would there by impactful work that’s currently unfunded?”, which is waht we actually care about.
Agree also our list of potential orgs working in the space is a bit random and probably misses some good, relevant funding opportunities. Thanks for the info about ODI and IDinsight, too.
My concern with wading into specific evaluations is less about establishing a credible/plausible causal link, and more about collecting enough data to build a proper counterfactual. My impression is that substantial policy changes often involve many different organisations, departments, and people, and it’s hard to work out whose presence made a difference. Our decision to stop short at this time was based heavily on our colleagues’ evaluations for climate organisations, which required a huge investment to confidently work out whose impact was truly counterfactual.
In any case, I’d love to speak more about your experience in the field if we take this work further—if you’re interested in that, please feel free to DM me so we can keep in touch.
I see. Let me know if I’m understanding this correctly: Founders Pledge aims to have cost-effectiveness estimate numbers, which involves a lot of work especially for topics like growth and climate change, whereas Open Phil takes a more qualitative approach for such topics with higher uncertainty. (If so, I am also curious about the philosophy behind your approach—I’m really uncertain which one works better, and that’s a bigger conversation.)
Re topics to look into, I second Michael’s suggestions: labor markets, firms, and monetary policy in developing countries. There’s also: trade, infrastructure, industrial policy, legal system, institutions etc. (Nick Bloom whom I mentioned earlier had the hypothesis that improving management practice in LMICs could be pretty impactful, and that requires a type of education/training not commonly discussed in LMICs.)
One thing tangentially related is Emergent Ventures India. (They don’t have a formal website—all updates seem to be posted on the Marginal Revolution blog.) It’s not growth-specific but rather just for innovative ideas that improve welfare. They don’t have any rigorous analysis (so I’m not sure whether it will fly with EAs) but the projects look cool and it could be a high-potential model (if expanded to Africa etc.).
Thanks for this great comment! I agree with you on neglectedness, I think the field is so broad that by looking at high-level funding we’re probably counting a lot of stuff that isn’t relevant directly to the question of “would there by impactful work that’s currently unfunded?”, which is waht we actually care about.
Agree also our list of potential orgs working in the space is a bit random and probably misses some good, relevant funding opportunities. Thanks for the info about ODI and IDinsight, too.
My concern with wading into specific evaluations is less about establishing a credible/plausible causal link, and more about collecting enough data to build a proper counterfactual. My impression is that substantial policy changes often involve many different organisations, departments, and people, and it’s hard to work out whose presence made a difference. Our decision to stop short at this time was based heavily on our colleagues’ evaluations for climate organisations, which required a huge investment to confidently work out whose impact was truly counterfactual.
In any case, I’d love to speak more about your experience in the field if we take this work further—if you’re interested in that, please feel free to DM me so we can keep in touch.
I see. Let me know if I’m understanding this correctly: Founders Pledge aims to have cost-effectiveness estimate numbers, which involves a lot of work especially for topics like growth and climate change, whereas Open Phil takes a more qualitative approach for such topics with higher uncertainty. (If so, I am also curious about the philosophy behind your approach—I’m really uncertain which one works better, and that’s a bigger conversation.)
Re topics to look into, I second Michael’s suggestions: labor markets, firms, and monetary policy in developing countries. There’s also: trade, infrastructure, industrial policy, legal system, institutions etc. (Nick Bloom whom I mentioned earlier had the hypothesis that improving management practice in LMICs could be pretty impactful, and that requires a type of education/training not commonly discussed in LMICs.)
One thing tangentially related is Emergent Ventures India. (They don’t have a formal website—all updates seem to be posted on the Marginal Revolution blog.) It’s not growth-specific but rather just for innovative ideas that improve welfare. They don’t have any rigorous analysis (so I’m not sure whether it will fly with EAs) but the projects look cool and it could be a high-potential model (if expanded to Africa etc.).
Happy to keep in touch—will shoot you a DM!