I estimated the cost-effectiveness of farmed fish slaughter commitments to be between $10.4K and $114M per DALY averted.
Animal welfare is often conceptualised as just one area, but the above illustrates the cost-effectiveness can vary a lot depending on the species and type of intervention. So I think it is great that you are willing to estimate the cost-effectiveness in terms of DALY/$[1]. It makes me more willing to donate to Rethink Priorities instead of Animal Charity Evaluators’ (ACE’s) recommended charities or the Animal Welfare Fund (AWF), because these are not estimating cost-effectiveness in terms of DALY/$ (or similar). Both ACE and AWF assess cost-effectiveness based on heuristics[2], but I am not confident they are sufficient to figure out which are the best animal welfare interventions. I see GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness analyses as quite important to determine the best interventions in global health and development, so I assume having similar analyses in the context of animal welfare is quite useful too.
To put these numbers in context, $50 per DALY averted [or 0.02 DALY/$ (= 1⁄50)] is considered a proxy for some of the most promising human global health and development interventions. The best animal interventions are often considered to be even more competitive than this.
For reference, I guess the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare is 13.6 DALY/$ (= 0.01*1.37*10^3), i.e. 680 (= 13.6/0.02) times Open Philanthropy’s bar. I got that multiplying:
The cost-effectiveness of GiveWell’s top charities of 0.01 DALY/$ (50 DALY per 5 k$), which is half of Open Philanthropy’s bar of 0.02 DALY/$.
My estimate for the ratio between cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare and GiveWell’s top charities of 1.37 k (= 1.71*10^3/0.682*2.73/5):
I calculated corporate campaigns for broiler welfare increase neaterm welfare 1.71 k times as cost-effectively as the lowest cost to save a life among GiveWell’s top charities then of 3.5 k$, respecting a cost-effectiveness of 0.286 life/k$ (= 1/(3.5*10^3)).
The current mean reciprocal of the cost to save a life of GiveWell’s 4 top charities is 0.195 life/k$ (= (3*1/5 + 1⁄5.5)*10^-3/4), i.e. 68.2 % (= 0.195/0.286) as high as the cost-effectiveness I just mentioned.
The ratio of 1.71 k in the 1st bullet respects campaigns for broiler welfare, but Saulius estimated ones for chicken welfare (broilers or hens) affect 2.73 (= 41⁄15) as many chicken-years.
OP thinks “the marginal FAW [farmed animal welfare] funding opportunity is ~1/5th as cost-effective as the average from Saulius’ analysis”.
In addition, from Giving What We Can’s evaluation of AWF:
Fourth, we saw some references to the numbers of animals that could be affected if an intervention went well, but we didn’t see any attempt at back-of-the-envelope calculations to get a rough sense of the cost-effectiveness of a grant, nor any direct comparison across grants to calibrate scoring.
Animal welfare is often conceptualised as just one area, but the above illustrates the cost-effectiveness can vary a lot depending on the species and type of intervention. So I think it is great that you are willing to estimate the cost-effectiveness in terms of DALY/$[1]. It makes me more willing to donate to Rethink Priorities instead of Animal Charity Evaluators’ (ACE’s) recommended charities or the Animal Welfare Fund (AWF), because these are not estimating cost-effectiveness in terms of DALY/$ (or similar). Both ACE and AWF assess cost-effectiveness based on heuristics[2], but I am not confident they are sufficient to figure out which are the best animal welfare interventions. I see GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness analyses as quite important to determine the best interventions in global health and development, so I assume having similar analyses in the context of animal welfare is quite useful too.
For reference, I guess the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare is 13.6 DALY/$ (= 0.01*1.37*10^3), i.e. 680 (= 13.6/0.02) times Open Philanthropy’s bar. I got that multiplying:
The cost-effectiveness of GiveWell’s top charities of 0.01 DALY/$ (50 DALY per 5 k$), which is half of Open Philanthropy’s bar of 0.02 DALY/$.
My estimate for the ratio between cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare and GiveWell’s top charities of 1.37 k (= 1.71*10^3/0.682*2.73/5):
I calculated corporate campaigns for broiler welfare increase neaterm welfare 1.71 k times as cost-effectively as the lowest cost to save a life among GiveWell’s top charities then of 3.5 k$, respecting a cost-effectiveness of 0.286 life/k$ (= 1/(3.5*10^3)).
The current mean reciprocal of the cost to save a life of GiveWell’s 4 top charities is 0.195 life/k$ (= (3*1/5 + 1⁄5.5)*10^-3/4), i.e. 68.2 % (= 0.195/0.286) as high as the cost-effectiveness I just mentioned.
The ratio of 1.71 k in the 1st bullet respects campaigns for broiler welfare, but Saulius estimated ones for chicken welfare (broilers or hens) affect 2.73 (= 41⁄15) as many chicken-years.
OP thinks “the marginal FAW [farmed animal welfare] funding opportunity is ~1/5th as cost-effective as the average from Saulius’ analysis”.
Although I think you are underestimating the cost-effectiveness.
In addition, from Giving What We Can’s evaluation of AWF: