If youâre just considering what you should personally do, then you donât need to worry about how to assign credit to yourself and other agents; just make sure you properly capture what other agents would be doing in your counterfactuals. I think GiveWell does this when assessing the impact of charities that depend on funding from sources other than those going through the charity, like governments partnering with the charity, because theyâd plausibly be doing something else useful with that funding, too.
Starting an AMF clone with similar (or worse) direct cost-effectiveness seems counterfactually low or even negative impact to me, if it means your funding would have otherwise (mostly) gone to AMF. And even if you arenât competing much for funding, it might be more efficient to just fundraise for AMF instead of duplicating overhead and risking doing far worse than AMF because of relative inexperience with the intervention. Or, just start a different charity with the potential to be more cost-effective than AMF. Shapley values, if you include AMF as an agent (or multiple agents) in the coalitional game require you to consider the counterfactual where neither AMF nor the AMF clone âcooperateâ, i.e. neither distributes more bednets, and the AMF clone gets counterfactual impact relative to that counterfactual. But thatâs not a reasonable counterfactual, because AMF isnât going to just not distribute more bednets.
This would also be a case where Iâd be disinclined to give credit to an AMF clone, if theyâd be mostly competing for AMFâs funding (but not if they found another source AMF wouldnât have been able to attract, even if they tried raising those funds for AMF). AMF was there first, and I donât want to encourage people to start redundant charities. If a charity has low or negative counterfactual impact from their own perspective (if they modelled things accurately), then the amount of credit they should get is low or negative.
One way Iâd want to think about credit assignments is: How should I assign credit in a way that leads to the best outcomes (in expectation, or whatever)? And I donât think giving (much) credit to competing charity clones does this, if and because they could be doing much more counterfactually valuable things instead.
That being said, there could be some value in competition, e.g. pressure to be better. Also, starting a charity can be useful for gaining experience, as well as training staff for other future roles, but again, someone could aim higher than cloning AMF.
Under the stated assumptions about the AMF clone, I agree with your assessments about low or negative impact. Would you also say, on paper, that Malaria Consortium and AMF are similar enough to being clones that whichever came second probably has/âhad low impact?
This is a great question, and itâs worth pointing out that some of the same issues could apply to charities working on pretty different things, too, like Helen Keller International or New Incentives, or even totally different cause areas like mental health or animal welfare. When you start a new charity, you want to allow more funding to be spent at a higher marginal cost-effectiveness than otherwise in expectation, keeping in mind that you can adjust your programs, pivot or shut down when you donât meet this bar. This holds regardless of how their programs or beneficiaries might differ. However, in practice, donors are often not cause-neutral or intervention-neutral and often donât make allocations between causes based on cost-effectiveness, so there would be less competition over funding between causes than within causes, as well as less between charities working on the same intervention than across interventions (with similar cost-effectiveness). Also, there are other reasons to funding multiple things, e.g. see Open Philâs post.
On AMF vs MC:
AMF and MC were founded in 2004 and 2003 respectively. This could have been too close together to tell if either would end up very cost-effective, so starting AMF after MC could have still made sense ex ante, because if MC didnât go well, then AMF could pick up more, and if AMF didnât go well, but MC did, then AMF could shut down (or pivot or get much less funding). AMF focused on bednets and has been a GiveWell Top Charity since 2011, while MC worked on multiple programs, including bednets and chemoprevention, and has only been top since 2016, for its chemoprevention program. I think itâs reasonable to assume that AMF has a more cost-effective net program, maybe far better, and, based on what GiveWell believed over 2011-2015, AMF probably had a lot of expected counterfactual impact. (Mostly based on AMFâs Wikipedia page and MCâs Wikipedia page.)
In retrospect, MC could have shut down during the years AMF was a top charity but MC wasnât or while both were top charities but AMF beat MC. But that probably would have been bad in the longer run, because MC has become more cost-effective than AMF, according to GiveWell. Also, having both might allow more funding to be spent at a higher bar for cost-effectiveness. AMFâs and MCâs programs are still different enough that if you are ambiguity averse or consider the possibility of a larger difference in cost-effectiveness between them in the future (so value of information), keeping both programs running now seems good (even if disproportionately funding whichever is more cost-effective). If the programs were the same, then youâd have much less uncertainty about how the two might differ in cost-effectiveness now and in the future, so thereâd be less value to diversification.
AMF and MC both vary significantly in marginal cost-effectiveness based on where they can work next (AMF sheet, MC sheet) and GiveWell allocates funding dynamically between them (and other top charities) to maximize impact, through its Top Charities Fund. If it only had one to allocate to, then it would plausibly do far less good, because it would have to go further down in marginal cost-effectiveness.
One thing Iâm now wondering about is whether GiveWell accounts for recipients of both a bednet and preventive antimalarial medicine, if any, in their cost-effectiveness estimates. It looks like AMF and MC work in some of the same countries, like Togo, Nigeria and Chad (AMF sheet, MC sheet).[1] If someone has already received one, then they are at much lower risk of death, so the extra impact of giving them the other should be lower than if they didnât already receive the first (assuming they would actually use the bednet). So, thereâs a risk of double-counting some lives saved. Similarly, I wouldnât be surprised if vitamin A deficiency made children more vulnerable to death from malaria, so there could be some double-counting with Helen Keller International, too. MC apparently takes bednet coverage into account in deciding where to work, and GiveWell makes adjustments for MC based on bednet coverage and for AMF based on chemopreventive medicine coverage, so maybe thereâs little overlap. On the other hand, itâs not just past coverage, but you need to make sure you donât end up working in the same places in any given year (unless itâs still worth it without any double-counting), which probably requires some coordination. The highest priority regions for both AMF and MC, before coordinating, would probably be regions with low net use and no recent preventive antimalarial medicine distribution, and so overlap substantially.
If youâre just considering what you should personally do, then you donât need to worry about how to assign credit to yourself and other agents; just make sure you properly capture what other agents would be doing in your counterfactuals. I think GiveWell does this when assessing the impact of charities that depend on funding from sources other than those going through the charity, like governments partnering with the charity, because theyâd plausibly be doing something else useful with that funding, too.
Starting an AMF clone with similar (or worse) direct cost-effectiveness seems counterfactually low or even negative impact to me, if it means your funding would have otherwise (mostly) gone to AMF. And even if you arenât competing much for funding, it might be more efficient to just fundraise for AMF instead of duplicating overhead and risking doing far worse than AMF because of relative inexperience with the intervention. Or, just start a different charity with the potential to be more cost-effective than AMF. Shapley values, if you include AMF as an agent (or multiple agents) in the coalitional game require you to consider the counterfactual where neither AMF nor the AMF clone âcooperateâ, i.e. neither distributes more bednets, and the AMF clone gets counterfactual impact relative to that counterfactual. But thatâs not a reasonable counterfactual, because AMF isnât going to just not distribute more bednets.
This would also be a case where Iâd be disinclined to give credit to an AMF clone, if theyâd be mostly competing for AMFâs funding (but not if they found another source AMF wouldnât have been able to attract, even if they tried raising those funds for AMF). AMF was there first, and I donât want to encourage people to start redundant charities. If a charity has low or negative counterfactual impact from their own perspective (if they modelled things accurately), then the amount of credit they should get is low or negative.
One way Iâd want to think about credit assignments is: How should I assign credit in a way that leads to the best outcomes (in expectation, or whatever)? And I donât think giving (much) credit to competing charity clones does this, if and because they could be doing much more counterfactually valuable things instead.
That being said, there could be some value in competition, e.g. pressure to be better. Also, starting a charity can be useful for gaining experience, as well as training staff for other future roles, but again, someone could aim higher than cloning AMF.
Under the stated assumptions about the AMF clone, I agree with your assessments about low or negative impact. Would you also say, on paper, that Malaria Consortium and AMF are similar enough to being clones that whichever came second probably has/âhad low impact?
This is a great question, and itâs worth pointing out that some of the same issues could apply to charities working on pretty different things, too, like Helen Keller International or New Incentives, or even totally different cause areas like mental health or animal welfare. When you start a new charity, you want to allow more funding to be spent at a higher marginal cost-effectiveness than otherwise in expectation, keeping in mind that you can adjust your programs, pivot or shut down when you donât meet this bar. This holds regardless of how their programs or beneficiaries might differ. However, in practice, donors are often not cause-neutral or intervention-neutral and often donât make allocations between causes based on cost-effectiveness, so there would be less competition over funding between causes than within causes, as well as less between charities working on the same intervention than across interventions (with similar cost-effectiveness). Also, there are other reasons to funding multiple things, e.g. see Open Philâs post.
On AMF vs MC:
AMF and MC were founded in 2004 and 2003 respectively. This could have been too close together to tell if either would end up very cost-effective, so starting AMF after MC could have still made sense ex ante, because if MC didnât go well, then AMF could pick up more, and if AMF didnât go well, but MC did, then AMF could shut down (or pivot or get much less funding). AMF focused on bednets and has been a GiveWell Top Charity since 2011, while MC worked on multiple programs, including bednets and chemoprevention, and has only been top since 2016, for its chemoprevention program. I think itâs reasonable to assume that AMF has a more cost-effective net program, maybe far better, and, based on what GiveWell believed over 2011-2015, AMF probably had a lot of expected counterfactual impact. (Mostly based on AMFâs Wikipedia page and MCâs Wikipedia page.)
In retrospect, MC could have shut down during the years AMF was a top charity but MC wasnât or while both were top charities but AMF beat MC. But that probably would have been bad in the longer run, because MC has become more cost-effective than AMF, according to GiveWell. Also, having both might allow more funding to be spent at a higher bar for cost-effectiveness. AMFâs and MCâs programs are still different enough that if you are ambiguity averse or consider the possibility of a larger difference in cost-effectiveness between them in the future (so value of information), keeping both programs running now seems good (even if disproportionately funding whichever is more cost-effective). If the programs were the same, then youâd have much less uncertainty about how the two might differ in cost-effectiveness now and in the future, so thereâd be less value to diversification.
AMF and MC both vary significantly in marginal cost-effectiveness based on where they can work next (AMF sheet, MC sheet) and GiveWell allocates funding dynamically between them (and other top charities) to maximize impact, through its Top Charities Fund. If it only had one to allocate to, then it would plausibly do far less good, because it would have to go further down in marginal cost-effectiveness.
One thing Iâm now wondering about is whether GiveWell accounts for recipients of both a bednet and preventive antimalarial medicine, if any, in their cost-effectiveness estimates. It looks like AMF and MC work in some of the same countries, like Togo, Nigeria and Chad (AMF sheet, MC sheet).[1] If someone has already received one, then they are at much lower risk of death, so the extra impact of giving them the other should be lower than if they didnât already receive the first (assuming they would actually use the bednet). So, thereâs a risk of double-counting some lives saved. Similarly, I wouldnât be surprised if vitamin A deficiency made children more vulnerable to death from malaria, so there could be some double-counting with Helen Keller International, too. MC apparently takes bednet coverage into account in deciding where to work, and GiveWell makes adjustments for MC based on bednet coverage and for AMF based on chemopreventive medicine coverage, so maybe thereâs little overlap. On the other hand, itâs not just past coverage, but you need to make sure you donât end up working in the same places in any given year (unless itâs still worth it without any double-counting), which probably requires some coordination. The highest priority regions for both AMF and MC, before coordinating, would probably be regions with low net use and no recent preventive antimalarial medicine distribution, and so overlap substantially.
And even if they didnât, one charity might have taken on the other charityâs countries if the other charity didnât exist.
On the other hand, they might not work in the same regions, cities or villages or whatever.