Thanks! So, directionally if not literally, are you suggesting that in policy BOTECs, rather than assuming a policy will happen eventually and have indefinite impacts, so we only need add in how many extra years of impact occurred by the intervention succeeding now rather than laterāwe should be including a metric āhow many years will this have impact forā and assigning ~100 years. And then take your data suggesting 80% of policies that barely passed were still in place 100 years later, but 40% of those that barely failed are. So should we be doing something like: That 100 year value (Probability of passing * 80%) - That 100 year value (probability of failing * 40%)
Yes, basically (if I understand correctly). If you think a policy has impact X for each year itās in place, and you donāt discount, then the impact of causing it to pass rather than fail is something on the order of 100 * X. The impact of funding a campaign to pass it is bigger, though, because you presumably donāt want to count the possibility that you fund it later as part of the counterfactual (see my note above about Appendix Figure D20).
Some things to keep in mind:
Impacts might change over time (e.g., a policy stops mattering in 50 years even if itās in place). If you think, e.g., transformative AI will upend everything, that might be what you need to think about here in terms of how long this policy change matters.
Iām looking at whether this policy or a version of it will be in place. Itās possible policies will be substituted for in some way in ways that make things wash out somewhat. (For instance, we donāt pass one animal welfare policy, but we pass some policy to shrink the farming sector.) I think this effect is small given the lack of differences by policy topicāthis should be much more of an issue for some topics than othersābut see the next point.
There are some hints of less persistence for policies where thereās more room for negotiation/āmore ways to dial it up and down. See my reply to Erich Grunewald lower downāfor taxes and Congressional legislation, it seems like the effect on whether some possibly weaker version of the policy eventually passes might wash out.
Thanks!
So, directionally if not literally, are you suggesting that in policy BOTECs, rather than assuming a policy will happen eventually and have indefinite impacts, so we only need add in how many extra years of impact occurred by the intervention succeeding now rather than laterāwe should be including a metric āhow many years will this have impact forā and assigning ~100 years. And then take your data suggesting 80% of policies that barely passed were still in place 100 years later, but 40% of those that barely failed are. So should we be doing something like: That 100 year value (Probability of passing * 80%) - That 100 year value (probability of failing * 40%)
Yes, basically (if I understand correctly). If you think a policy has impact X for each year itās in place, and you donāt discount, then the impact of causing it to pass rather than fail is something on the order of 100 * X. The impact of funding a campaign to pass it is bigger, though, because you presumably donāt want to count the possibility that you fund it later as part of the counterfactual (see my note above about Appendix Figure D20).
Some things to keep in mind:
Impacts might change over time (e.g., a policy stops mattering in 50 years even if itās in place). If you think, e.g., transformative AI will upend everything, that might be what you need to think about here in terms of how long this policy change matters.
Iām looking at whether this policy or a version of it will be in place. Itās possible policies will be substituted for in some way in ways that make things wash out somewhat. (For instance, we donāt pass one animal welfare policy, but we pass some policy to shrink the farming sector.) I think this effect is small given the lack of differences by policy topicāthis should be much more of an issue for some topics than othersābut see the next point.
There are some hints of less persistence for policies where thereās more room for negotiation/āmore ways to dial it up and down. See my reply to Erich Grunewald lower downāfor taxes and Congressional legislation, it seems like the effect on whether some possibly weaker version of the policy eventually passes might wash out.