Thanks for this (somewhat overwhelming!) analysis. I tried to do something similar a few years back, and am pretty enthusiastic about the idea of incorporating more uncertainty analysis into cost effectiveness estimates, generally.
One thing (that I don’t think you mentioned, though I’m still working through the whole post) this allows you to do is use techniques from Modern Portfolio Theory to create giving portfolios with similar altruistic returns and lower downside risk. I’d be curious to see if your analysis could be used in a similar way.
Oh, very cool! I like the idea of sampling from different GiveWell staffers’ values (though I couldn’t do that here since I regarded essentially all input parameters as uncertain instead of just the highlighted ones).
I hadn’t thought about the MPT connection. I’ll think about that more.
Thanks for this (somewhat overwhelming!) analysis. I tried to do something similar a few years back, and am pretty enthusiastic about the idea of incorporating more uncertainty analysis into cost effectiveness estimates, generally.
One thing (that I don’t think you mentioned, though I’m still working through the whole post) this allows you to do is use techniques from Modern Portfolio Theory to create giving portfolios with similar altruistic returns and lower downside risk. I’d be curious to see if your analysis could be used in a similar way.
Oh, very cool! I like the idea of sampling from different GiveWell staffers’ values (though I couldn’t do that here since I regarded essentially all input parameters as uncertain instead of just the highlighted ones).
I hadn’t thought about the MPT connection. I’ll think about that more.