Thanks Josh, I particularly appreciate your quantified estimates of likelihood/impact.
per this article, incarceration rates in the U.S. have declined 20% (per person) between 2008 and 2019, your estimates here seem somewhat pessimistic to me.
Not sure how that follows; what would be needed for counterfactual/shapley impact would be a further reduction in the absence/reduction of funding. If OP donates $5B and the imprisonment rate goes down another 20%, but would have gone down a 20% (resp 15%) anyways, the impact is 0 (resp 5%).
Yeah it’s unclear how much of the 20% reduction is due to OP’s work or would happen counterfactually. My main point with that number is that reductions of that size are very possible, which implies assuming a 1-10% chance of that level of impact at a funding level 10-100x OP’s amount is overly conservative (particularly since I think OP was funding like 25% of American CJR work—though that number may be a bit off).
Another quick back of the envelope way to do the math would be to say something like: assume 1. 50% of policy change is due to deliberate advocacy, 2. OP’s a funder of average ability that is funding 25% of the field, 3. the 20% 2009-2018 change implies a further 20% change is 50% likely at their level of funding, then I think you get 6.25% (.5*.25*.5) odds of OP’s $25M a year funding level achieving a 20% change in incarceration rates. If I’m looking at your math right (and sorry if not) a 20% reduction for 10 years would be worth like (using point estimates) 4M QALYs (2M people *10 years *1 QALY*20% decrease), which I think would come out to 250K QALYs in expectation (6.25%*4M), which at $25M/year for 10 years would be 1K/QALY—similar to your estimate for GiveDirectly but worse than AMF. (Sorry if any of that math is wrong—did it quickly and haphazardly)
Thanks Josh, I particularly appreciate your quantified estimates of likelihood/impact.
Not sure how that follows; what would be needed for counterfactual/shapley impact would be a further reduction in the absence/reduction of funding. If OP donates $5B and the imprisonment rate goes down another 20%, but would have gone down a 20% (resp 15%) anyways, the impact is 0 (resp 5%).
Yeah it’s unclear how much of the 20% reduction is due to OP’s work or would happen counterfactually. My main point with that number is that reductions of that size are very possible, which implies assuming a 1-10% chance of that level of impact at a funding level 10-100x OP’s amount is overly conservative (particularly since I think OP was funding like 25% of American CJR work—though that number may be a bit off).
Another quick back of the envelope way to do the math would be to say something like: assume 1. 50% of policy change is due to deliberate advocacy, 2. OP’s a funder of average ability that is funding 25% of the field, 3. the 20% 2009-2018 change implies a further 20% change is 50% likely at their level of funding, then I think you get 6.25% (.5*.25*.5) odds of OP’s $25M a year funding level achieving a 20% change in incarceration rates. If I’m looking at your math right (and sorry if not) a 20% reduction for 10 years would be worth like (using point estimates) 4M QALYs (2M people *10 years *1 QALY*20% decrease), which I think would come out to 250K QALYs in expectation (6.25%*4M), which at $25M/year for 10 years would be 1K/QALY—similar to your estimate for GiveDirectly but worse than AMF. (Sorry if any of that math is wrong—did it quickly and haphazardly)