(I don’t want to get into a full explanation/discussion of the analogies between the systemic change discussion and the growth objection in this comment but just for the sake of clarity:
Both about relatively small and certain impacts vs large and more speculative impacts
Both about interventions with substantial empirical evidence vs more theory-driven interventions
Both about policy/institutions
)
Hopefully pointing out these related discussions comes across as a helpful pointer to further thinking and not a “Gotcha!”.
In the piece, we say that there is no publicly published treatments by EAs of (1) how best to increase growth, (2) the claim that we know nothing about how to increase growth. I don’t see that claim being discussed in either the Broi post or the Shulman post—neither of them mentions economic growth. I hadn’t seen the thing on trade, but this also can’t really be classed as a treatment of either question—it just discusses one way to increase growth, it doesn’t compare and rank different ways of increasing growth.
Pritchett’s arguments are a form of the systemic change objection, which has been discussed a bit. But there are lots of different forms of the systemic change and the forms that have been raised previously are either (i) socialist or (ii) people misrepresenting what EA actually does by saying that EA is in principle opposed to systemic change or that it never does systemic change, both of which are obviously false.
Yup, agreed that none of the linked things are on growth per se. I just think the link to the systemic change objection is useful because it gives hints as to what problems there might be with the growth-focus argument, how people are likely to react to the growth-focus argument, which arguments are persuasive, etc.
We have also ranked American political policies and candidates in terms of how much impact they will have on growth (and other issues), giving quantitative weighting to different issues.
It is very rough and tentative but suggests that housing and immigration liberalization are the most important areas for U.S. domestic policy to improve economic growth. Different Fed policy and child allowance might be very good too.
There are a few claims like this in the post. I think there is prior related work. Narrowly, a recent example is Effective Altruism and International Trade. More broadly, I think there are strong links between the line of debate in this post and the perennial “systemic change objection” (as alluded to by jonathanpaulson in another comment). Recent stuff on the systemic change objection includes e.g. Effective Altruism and Systemic Change and Some personal thoughts on EA and systemic change.
(I don’t want to get into a full explanation/discussion of the analogies between the systemic change discussion and the growth objection in this comment but just for the sake of clarity:
Both about relatively small and certain impacts vs large and more speculative impacts
Both about interventions with substantial empirical evidence vs more theory-driven interventions
Both about policy/institutions
)
Hopefully pointing out these related discussions comes across as a helpful pointer to further thinking and not a “Gotcha!”.
In the piece, we say that there is no publicly published treatments by EAs of (1) how best to increase growth, (2) the claim that we know nothing about how to increase growth. I don’t see that claim being discussed in either the Broi post or the Shulman post—neither of them mentions economic growth. I hadn’t seen the thing on trade, but this also can’t really be classed as a treatment of either question—it just discusses one way to increase growth, it doesn’t compare and rank different ways of increasing growth.
Pritchett’s arguments are a form of the systemic change objection, which has been discussed a bit. But there are lots of different forms of the systemic change and the forms that have been raised previously are either (i) socialist or (ii) people misrepresenting what EA actually does by saying that EA is in principle opposed to systemic change or that it never does systemic change, both of which are obviously false.
Yup, agreed that none of the linked things are on growth per se. I just think the link to the systemic change objection is useful because it gives hints as to what problems there might be with the growth-focus argument, how people are likely to react to the growth-focus argument, which arguments are persuasive, etc.
We have also ranked American political policies and candidates in terms of how much impact they will have on growth (and other issues), giving quantitative weighting to different issues.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!At2KcPiXB5rkyABaEsATaMrRDxwj?e=VvVnl2
It is very rough and tentative but suggests that housing and immigration liberalization are the most important areas for U.S. domestic policy to improve economic growth. Different Fed policy and child allowance might be very good too.
Not sure if already mentioned but this post by Ben Kuhn is also relevant https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/M9RD8S7fRFhY6mnYN/why-nations-fail-and-the-long-termist-view-of-global-poverty