Is there a study that investigates whether a Dollar spent on one of the most effective charities today is more effective in terms of “lives saved”[1] than a Dollar donated tomorrow (for example in 20 years)?
Such a study would have to take into account:
(1) the expected return on capital invested for example for 20 years (it’s not so difficult to make a reasonable assumption here),
(2) the expected positive long term effects of a donation (for example if you save a mother from death by malaria her children will grow up with a mother which increases their chance to receive (higher) education which increases the productivity of the economy etc).
There are other factors but they seem too hard to quantify:
(a) the growing effectiveness (?) of charity work,
(b) exploiting/furthering negative externalities when investing capital,
(c) the greater (?) effectiveness of preventing catastrophies for humanity by starting early (this one assumes that humanity is in greater danger in the near future than in the more distant future).
[1] …or another more refined metric for the effectiveness of a donation.
Philip Trammell has researched this topic of the timing of philanthropy. You can find it here: https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Trammell-Dynamic-Public-Good-Provision-under-Time-Preference-Heterogeneity.pdf or more informal here:
Thanks for sharing! Will check it out.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/amdReARfSvgf5PpKK/phil-trammell-philanthropy-timing-and-the-hinge-of-history for notes on the linked talk.
Is anyone acting on this at the individual-funder level?; if you believe that giving in the present is substantially better than in the future (for any of the four reasons in the talk, say), should you take on debt to do so? At what rate? Anyone trying this?
https://founderspledge.com/funds/patient-philanthropy-fund Founders Pledge tries the opposite and Phil Trammell’s research also argues that more patient philanthropists (who value the long term future) should save most of their money. But if u have very short timelines this might change as discussed here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8c7LycgtkypkgYjZx/agi-and-the-emh-markets-are-not-expecting-aligned-or