Our grantmaking always aims at maximizing DALYS averted (with income and other stuff translated to DALYs too).
In terms of cost-effectiveness, itās nominally 30-50x GW, but GiveWell is more rigorous in discounting, so our figures should be inflated relative to GW. Based on some internal analysis we did of GWās greater strictness in individual line-item estimation and in the greater number of adjustments they employ, we think a more conservative estimate is that our estimates may be up to 3x inflated (i.e. something we think is 10x GW may be closer to 3x GW, which is why we use a 10x GW threshold for recommending GHD causes in the first placeāto ensure that what we recommend is genuinely >GW, and moving money to the new cause area is +EV).
So my more conservative guess for our grantmaking is that itās closer to 9-15x GW, but again I have to emphasize the high uncertainty (and riskiness, which is the inherent price we pay for these ultra high EV policy interventions).
Thanks, Joel! Do you also think your estimate that donating to Giving What We Can (GWWC) this year is 13 times as cost-effective as GiveWellās top charities is also 3 times as high as it should be, such that your best guess is that it is 4.33 (= 13ā3) times as cost-effective as GiveWellās top charities (although there is large uncertainty)? Or is the adjustment only supposed to be applicable to CEARCHās CEAs listed here?
Hey Vasco, the adjustment is specific to GiveWell vs us (or indeed, non-GW CEAs), since GiveWell probably is the most rigorous in discounting, while other organizations are less so, for various reasons (mainly timeāthatās true for us, and why we just use a rough 10x GW threshold; and itās true of FP too; Matt Lerner goes into detail here on the tradeoff between drilling down vs spending researcher time finding and supporting more high EV opportunities instead).
Relative to every other organization, I donāt find CEARCH to be systematically overoptimistic in the same way (at least for our deep/āfinal round CEAs).
For our GWWC evaluation, I think the ballpark figure (robustly positive multiplier) probably still holds, but Iām uncertain about the precise figure right now, after seeing some of GWWCās latest data (theyāll release their 2023-24 impact evaluation soon).
Our grantmaking always aims at maximizing DALYS averted (with income and other stuff translated to DALYs too).
In terms of cost-effectiveness, itās nominally 30-50x GW, but GiveWell is more rigorous in discounting, so our figures should be inflated relative to GW. Based on some internal analysis we did of GWās greater strictness in individual line-item estimation and in the greater number of adjustments they employ, we think a more conservative estimate is that our estimates may be up to 3x inflated (i.e. something we think is 10x GW may be closer to 3x GW, which is why we use a 10x GW threshold for recommending GHD causes in the first placeāto ensure that what we recommend is genuinely >GW, and moving money to the new cause area is +EV).
So my more conservative guess for our grantmaking is that itās closer to 9-15x GW, but again I have to emphasize the high uncertainty (and riskiness, which is the inherent price we pay for these ultra high EV policy interventions).
Thanks, Joel! Do you also think your estimate that donating to Giving What We Can (GWWC) this year is 13 times as cost-effective as GiveWellās top charities is also 3 times as high as it should be, such that your best guess is that it is 4.33 (= 13ā3) times as cost-effective as GiveWellās top charities (although there is large uncertainty)? Or is the adjustment only supposed to be applicable to CEARCHās CEAs listed here?
Hey Vasco, the adjustment is specific to GiveWell vs us (or indeed, non-GW CEAs), since GiveWell probably is the most rigorous in discounting, while other organizations are less so, for various reasons (mainly timeāthatās true for us, and why we just use a rough 10x GW threshold; and itās true of FP too; Matt Lerner goes into detail here on the tradeoff between drilling down vs spending researcher time finding and supporting more high EV opportunities instead).
Relative to every other organization, I donāt find CEARCH to be systematically overoptimistic in the same way (at least for our deep/āfinal round CEAs).
For our GWWC evaluation, I think the ballpark figure (robustly positive multiplier) probably still holds, but Iām uncertain about the precise figure right now, after seeing some of GWWCās latest data (theyāll release their 2023-24 impact evaluation soon).