Interesting post! If I understand you correctly, you’re arguing that we should evaluate other possible uses for charity money, like pursuing economic growth, which might be better than e.g. GiveWells analysis?
I think this part is the most important one
I should focus on “at a lower cost than pretty much anything else we know.” Perhaps those recommending these charities as having the highest impact are doing so because they can be implemented and evaluated with confidence at a lower cost relative to efforts to improve state capacity and boost economic growth.
There’s 3 points that come to mind here.
First of all, pursuing economic growth sounds great—what concrete options would you imagine though?
Second of all, if you ask 2 different economists how to boost the economy you’ll likely get 3 different answers. It’s extremely hard to get any facts in this field, due to interconnectedness of economies and so many factors having an impact on economic reality. So to me, measuring the effectiveness of any intervention would basically be an impossible task. Contrast this to giving out things (bednets or anything else really), where you can easily compare populations/neighborhoods/communities that received them with those that didn’t.
Third, regarding the current funding levels. Ultimately, growing the economy is the goal of any government, business and to some extent many private individuals in a country. It doesn’t seem obvious to me that e.g. a few million by a charity will meaningfully move the scale here. Again, compared to e.g. efforts against malaria, which have way less funding and way less powerful proponents.
Interesting post! If I understand you correctly, you’re arguing that we should evaluate other possible uses for charity money, like pursuing economic growth, which might be better than e.g. GiveWells analysis?
I think this part is the most important one
There’s 3 points that come to mind here.
First of all, pursuing economic growth sounds great—what concrete options would you imagine though?
Second of all, if you ask 2 different economists how to boost the economy you’ll likely get 3 different answers. It’s extremely hard to get any facts in this field, due to interconnectedness of economies and so many factors having an impact on economic reality. So to me, measuring the effectiveness of any intervention would basically be an impossible task. Contrast this to giving out things (bednets or anything else really), where you can easily compare populations/neighborhoods/communities that received them with those that didn’t.
Third, regarding the current funding levels. Ultimately, growing the economy is the goal of any government, business and to some extent many private individuals in a country. It doesn’t seem obvious to me that e.g. a few million by a charity will meaningfully move the scale here. Again, compared to e.g. efforts against malaria, which have way less funding and way less powerful proponents.
This was a link post so it’s probably best to add a comment to the original—https://srajagopalan.substack.com/p/altruism-and-development-its-complicated/comments