I think this has been thought about a few times since EA started.
In 2015 Max Dalton wrote about medical research and said the below.
“GiveWell note that most funders of medical research more generally have large budgets, and claim that ‘It’s reasonable to ask how much value a new funder – even a relatively large one – can add in this context’. Whilst the field of tropical disease research is, as I argued above, more neglected, there are still a number of large foundations, and funding for several diseases is on the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, funding the development of a new drug may cost close to a billion dollars .
For these reasons, it is difficult to imagine a marginal dollar having any impact. However, as Macaskill argues at several points in Doing Good Better, this appears to only increase the riskiness of the donation, rather than reducing its expected impact.
In 2018 Peter Wildeford and Marcus A. Davis wrote about the cost effectiveness of vaccines and suggested that a malaria vaccine is competitive with other global health opportunities.
I think this has been thought about a few times since EA started.
In 2015 Max Dalton wrote about medical research and said the below.
“GiveWell note that most funders of medical research more generally have large budgets, and claim that ‘It’s reasonable to ask how much value a new funder – even a relatively large one – can add in this context’. Whilst the field of tropical disease research is, as I argued above, more neglected, there are still a number of large foundations, and funding for several diseases is on the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, funding the development of a new drug may cost close to a billion dollars .
For these reasons, it is difficult to imagine a marginal dollar having any impact. However, as Macaskill argues at several points in Doing Good Better, this appears to only increase the riskiness of the donation, rather than reducing its expected impact.
In 2018 Peter Wildeford and Marcus A. Davis wrote about the cost effectiveness of vaccines and suggested that a malaria vaccine is competitive with other global health opportunities.
Related: early discussion of gene drives in 2016.