I am continuing monthly donations to The Humane League, as I think their past campaigns are likely to have been more cost-effective at averting suffering than GiveWell top charities, based on this report. I am also donating to GiveWell top charities as they are clearly the gold standard for global poverty. Finally, I allocate a smaller portion of my donations to the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), which I think could plausibly be more cost-effective given the vast costs of climate change, though I would like to see some attempt to quantify the cost-effectiveness of CATF’s work.
I am also considering swtiching some of these donations to StrongMinds, because I ultimately care most about happiness/suffering, but I am waiting to see if GiveWell provides updates in response to Happier Lives Institute’s report.
Hey, I am the author of the corporate campaigns cost-effectiveness estimate you mention. In case it’s relevant, I recently spent 3 months doing another (much more detailed) cost-effectiveness estimate of chicken welfare reforms (corporate and legislative) that I unfortunately can not make public. According to this new estimate, in 2019-2020 chicken welfare reforms affected 65 years of chicken life per dollar spent. According to the same new estimate, the cost-effectiveness in 2016-2018 was about 2.5 times higher. So while it’s true that lately campaigns were not as cost-effective as they were some years ago, I think that they are still very cost-effective. In fact, even more cost-effective than my linked report suggests because in that report I think I underestimated the cost-effectiveness. Also, because of the research of the Welfare Footprint Project, I now think that these reforms are more important to chickens than I thought previously (although I haven’t yet examined the broiler book in detail).
Hi Lucas! On CATF, our new report does include a new conservative back of the envelope calculation why we think organizations like CATF are so cost-effective (in “Background”) and, more importantly than this one particular estimate, brings together the underlying reasoning. I also hope to publish some retrospective analysis on grants to CATF and Carbon180 in the new year (pertaining to impact on climate policy in the US) as well as prospective new cost-effectiveness estimates for CATF (pertaining to a grant for CATF under a different theory of change, avoiding carbon lock-in in emerging economies).
Thanks Saulius and Johannes! Sounds like these are both fantastic giving opportunities.
Re the Welfare Footprint Project, my understanding is that we need these welfare estimates to calculate the effect of the Better Chicken Commitment (for example) on years of suffering averted, i.e. something like: 65 years of chicken life * (difference in hours per chicken life of disabling or excruciating pain between slower growing breeds and faster growing breeds / hours lived per chicken life). Is that the approach you would take Saulius?
Johannes, thanks for linking that cost-effectiveness work, and looking forward to seeing further updates!
Yes, that is the approach I would take. You don’t need to divide by hours lived per chicken life though because that’s already taken into account in the metric of hours in pain endured throughout the life time. If anything, you might want to adjust for the fact that cage-free hens currently lay fewer eggs throughout their lifetime than caged hens but this will make at most maybe 10% difference. Also, the difference between eggs per hen might shrink as they might optimize cage-free production more when its scale becomes bigger. When it comes to cost-effectiveness of broiler vs. cage-free campaigns, my estimates suggest that it was quite similar for the years 2019-2020 (I’m just telling this because you would need to know that too to make that estimate).
I also had tried to see how many DALYs did these campaigns produce and got that it’s about 1 DALY per dollar spent. This is based on subjective assumptions that a chicken has 25 times less moral weight than a human, and that the suffering that is prevented by these welfare reforms is as bad as a condition for a human that in GDB (2019) is described as “has severe back and leg pain, which causes difficulty dressing, sitting, standing, walking, and lifting things. The person sleeps poorly and feels worried.” (though values I used for the impact of the reforms in Europe are a bit smaller.
I wasn’t sure if the 65 years (or 569,400 hours) per dollar already accounts for the number of hours lived in disabling/excruciating pain (as opposed to milder suffering)?
To be more precise, if each hen lives for ~1.27 years (i.e. 11,125 hours), and a caged hen spends ~431 hours in disabling/excruciating pain, while an aviary hen spends ~156 hours in disabling/excruciating pain, I was thinking that the reduction in hours of suffering per dollar is actually 569400*(431-156)/11125 = 14,075 hours (or 1.6 years)?
In other words, I was trying to account for the fact that only 275 hours of suffering are being averted rather than 11,125 hours per hen. However, am I missing something that is contained in your model? (Note: I wasn’t sure if 65 years referred to hens or broilers, but the same sentiment would hold either way.)
As you note, this doesn’t account for differences in productivity (It was really interesting to hear that cage-free productivity might increase with scale!).
Thanks again for engaging in this discussion, and looking forward to hearing your reponse!
Hi Lucas. No, 65 years estimate doesn’t account for the number of hours lived in disabling/excruciating pain. It just means that this how many years chickens spend in better conditions per dollar spent. I found that for every dollar spent on cage-free campaigns, the campaigns caused 60 years of hens being in cage-free rather than caged environments. For every dollar spent on broiler campaigns, the campaigns caused 72 years of broilers being grown in better conditions (most of the impact comes from Europe). Since these numbers are similar, I just said one number (65 years) which says how many years both cage-free and caged campaigns impact per dollar. I did not estimate hours of pain the campaigns prevented.
Note that this is cost-effectiveness of an average dollar, not of the additional dollar that you might be donating. And there are many other things that this estimate doesn’t take into account that are listed here (this is for the old estimate, but I think all the same points would apply for this new estimate too).
I am continuing monthly donations to The Humane League, as I think their past campaigns are likely to have been more cost-effective at averting suffering than GiveWell top charities, based on this report. I am also donating to GiveWell top charities as they are clearly the gold standard for global poverty. Finally, I allocate a smaller portion of my donations to the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), which I think could plausibly be more cost-effective given the vast costs of climate change, though I would like to see some attempt to quantify the cost-effectiveness of CATF’s work.
I am also considering swtiching some of these donations to StrongMinds, because I ultimately care most about happiness/suffering, but I am waiting to see if GiveWell provides updates in response to Happier Lives Institute’s report.
Hey, I am the author of the corporate campaigns cost-effectiveness estimate you mention. In case it’s relevant, I recently spent 3 months doing another (much more detailed) cost-effectiveness estimate of chicken welfare reforms (corporate and legislative) that I unfortunately can not make public. According to this new estimate, in 2019-2020 chicken welfare reforms affected 65 years of chicken life per dollar spent. According to the same new estimate, the cost-effectiveness in 2016-2018 was about 2.5 times higher. So while it’s true that lately campaigns were not as cost-effective as they were some years ago, I think that they are still very cost-effective. In fact, even more cost-effective than my linked report suggests because in that report I think I underestimated the cost-effectiveness. Also, because of the research of the Welfare Footprint Project, I now think that these reforms are more important to chickens than I thought previously (although I haven’t yet examined the broiler book in detail).
Hi Lucas! On CATF, our new report does include a new conservative back of the envelope calculation why we think organizations like CATF are so cost-effective (in “Background”) and, more importantly than this one particular estimate, brings together the underlying reasoning. I also hope to publish some retrospective analysis on grants to CATF and Carbon180 in the new year (pertaining to impact on climate policy in the US) as well as prospective new cost-effectiveness estimates for CATF (pertaining to a grant for CATF under a different theory of change, avoiding carbon lock-in in emerging economies).
Thanks Saulius and Johannes! Sounds like these are both fantastic giving opportunities.
Re the Welfare Footprint Project, my understanding is that we need these welfare estimates to calculate the effect of the Better Chicken Commitment (for example) on years of suffering averted, i.e. something like: 65 years of chicken life * (difference in hours per chicken life of disabling or excruciating pain between slower growing breeds and faster growing breeds / hours lived per chicken life). Is that the approach you would take Saulius?
Johannes, thanks for linking that cost-effectiveness work, and looking forward to seeing further updates!
Yes, that is the approach I would take. You don’t need to divide by hours lived per chicken life though because that’s already taken into account in the metric of hours in pain endured throughout the life time. If anything, you might want to adjust for the fact that cage-free hens currently lay fewer eggs throughout their lifetime than caged hens but this will make at most maybe 10% difference. Also, the difference between eggs per hen might shrink as they might optimize cage-free production more when its scale becomes bigger. When it comes to cost-effectiveness of broiler vs. cage-free campaigns, my estimates suggest that it was quite similar for the years 2019-2020 (I’m just telling this because you would need to know that too to make that estimate).
I also had tried to see how many DALYs did these campaigns produce and got that it’s about 1 DALY per dollar spent. This is based on subjective assumptions that a chicken has 25 times less moral weight than a human, and that the suffering that is prevented by these welfare reforms is as bad as a condition for a human that in GDB (2019) is described as “has severe back and leg pain, which causes difficulty dressing, sitting, standing, walking, and lifting things. The person sleeps poorly and feels worried.” (though values I used for the impact of the reforms in Europe are a bit smaller.
Thanks for your reply Saulius!
I wasn’t sure if the 65 years (or 569,400 hours) per dollar already accounts for the number of hours lived in disabling/excruciating pain (as opposed to milder suffering)?
To be more precise, if each hen lives for ~1.27 years (i.e. 11,125 hours), and a caged hen spends ~431 hours in disabling/excruciating pain, while an aviary hen spends ~156 hours in disabling/excruciating pain, I was thinking that the reduction in hours of suffering per dollar is actually 569400*(431-156)/11125 = 14,075 hours (or 1.6 years)?
In other words, I was trying to account for the fact that only 275 hours of suffering are being averted rather than 11,125 hours per hen. However, am I missing something that is contained in your model? (Note: I wasn’t sure if 65 years referred to hens or broilers, but the same sentiment would hold either way.)
As you note, this doesn’t account for differences in productivity (It was really interesting to hear that cage-free productivity might increase with scale!).
Thanks again for engaging in this discussion, and looking forward to hearing your reponse!
Hi Lucas. No, 65 years estimate doesn’t account for the number of hours lived in disabling/excruciating pain. It just means that this how many years chickens spend in better conditions per dollar spent. I found that for every dollar spent on cage-free campaigns, the campaigns caused 60 years of hens being in cage-free rather than caged environments. For every dollar spent on broiler campaigns, the campaigns caused 72 years of broilers being grown in better conditions (most of the impact comes from Europe). Since these numbers are similar, I just said one number (65 years) which says how many years both cage-free and caged campaigns impact per dollar. I did not estimate hours of pain the campaigns prevented.
Note that this is cost-effectiveness of an average dollar, not of the additional dollar that you might be donating. And there are many other things that this estimate doesn’t take into account that are listed here (this is for the old estimate, but I think all the same points would apply for this new estimate too).
Thanks very much Saulius, that all makes sense!
Happy new year!