I am far less convinced that life saving interventions are net population creating than I am that family planning decreases it. Written about 10 years ago, but still one of the better pieces on this IMO is David Roodman’s report commissioned by GiveWell.
Fair! From Wilde et. al (2020), whose abstract is below (emphasis mine), bednets increase fertility 1 to 3 years after their distribution, but decrease it afterwards, so population initially increases (because bednets also decrease nearterm mortality), but may decrease soon after the distribution.
We examine the extent to which recent declines in child mortality and fertility in SubSaharan Africa can be attributed to insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs). Exploiting the rapid increase in ITNs since the mid-2000s, we employ a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to identify the causal effect of ITNs on mortality and fertility. We show that the ITN distribution campaigns reduced all-cause child mortality, but surprisingly increased total fertility rates in the short run in spite of reduced desire for children and increased contraceptive use. We explain this paradox in two ways. First, we show evidence for an unexpected increase in fecundity and sexual activity due to the better health environment after the ITN distribution. Second, we show evidence that the effect on fertility is positive only temporarily – lasting only 1-3 years after the beginning of the ITN distribution programs – and then becomes negative. Taken together, these results suggest the ITN distribution campaigns may have caused fertility to increase unexpectedly and temporarily, or that these increases may just be a tempo effect – changes in fertility timing which do not lead to increased completed fertility.
I guess the above partly generalises to other interventions. If saving lives decreases population, it may well decrease welfare (if the increase in welfare per capita is not sufficiently large), thus being harmful under many moral views. Likewise for family planning interventions. CE’s theories of change for the family planning interventions of the 3 reports I mentioned above have as outcome decreasing unwanted pregnancies. Are you assuming this is intrinsically valuable, or are you super confident that it leads to higher human welfare (because the increase in human welfare per capita exceeds the decrease in population)? I think the outcome should at least be increasing human welfare (and, ideally, increasing welfare accounting for both humans and animals).
I think for externalities you can get yourself pretty lost down a rabbit hole based on pretty speculative assumptions if you are not careful. We try to think of it a bit like the weight quantitative modeling described here and only include effects that we think are major (e.g. 10%+ effect after uncertainty adjustments on the total impact).
I agree, but I think it is at least worth mentioning the potential negative externalities on animals (without getting lost into rabbit holes). I also think it would be good to justify that the regression of the potential negative externalities is so large that they become negligible, especially if a direct interpretation leads one to conclude they overwhelm the direct effects (as in the report I discussed in the previous comment).
Thanks, Joey!
Fair! From Wilde et. al (2020), whose abstract is below (emphasis mine), bednets increase fertility 1 to 3 years after their distribution, but decrease it afterwards, so population initially increases (because bednets also decrease nearterm mortality), but may decrease soon after the distribution.
I guess the above partly generalises to other interventions. If saving lives decreases population, it may well decrease welfare (if the increase in welfare per capita is not sufficiently large), thus being harmful under many moral views. Likewise for family planning interventions. CE’s theories of change for the family planning interventions of the 3 reports I mentioned above have as outcome decreasing unwanted pregnancies. Are you assuming this is intrinsically valuable, or are you super confident that it leads to higher human welfare (because the increase in human welfare per capita exceeds the decrease in population)? I think the outcome should at least be increasing human welfare (and, ideally, increasing welfare accounting for both humans and animals).
I agree, but I think it is at least worth mentioning the potential negative externalities on animals (without getting lost into rabbit holes). I also think it would be good to justify that the regression of the potential negative externalities is so large that they become negligible, especially if a direct interpretation leads one to conclude they overwhelm the direct effects (as in the report I discussed in the previous comment).