Markets for altruism are actual or potential market-like mechanisms for allocating resources in altruistic contexts. An example would be certificates of impact.
Further reading
Aird, Michael (2020) Collection of sources relevant to impact certificates/impact purchases/similar, Effective Altruism Forum, November 15.
Many additional resources on this topic or related topics.
Related entries
certificates of impact | community infrastructure | effective altruism funding | mechanism design | prize | scalably using labour | socially responsible investing
I think this tag is basically a superset of the new certificates for impact tag. I also think there’s enough that this tag is relevant for that’s not certificates for impact that this tag is worth keeping. But it would seem a bit weird to give everything with the certificates for impact tag this tag as well. So maybe we should:
Just delete the certificates for impact tag, and have this entry explain that concept and cover it?
Probably a bad move, because some people will look for the term “certificates of impact” specifically, and that concept by itself is notable enough to warrant an entry
Use this tag only for posts that shouldn’t get the certificates of impact tag?
Just keep on tagging every certificates of impact post with this tag as well, and not worry about that being somewhat redundant?
I expect this issue to arise with many tags, so it seems worth thinking what our general policy should be. Of the three options you list, I would favor the third. A variant of that option, or perhaps a separate fourth option, is to reserve the broader tag for posts that discuss the superset as such, rather than some of its elements. In our example, we would use ‘markets for altruism’ for posts that consider the use of markets in altruistic contexts, the relative efficiency of altruistic and non-altruistic markets, the different forms markets for altruism may take, etc., and ‘certificates of impact’ for posts that discuss certificates of impact as such.
Yeah, agreed. Though unfortunately I don’t currently feel like I have a great policy idea or a strong view of which of these options we’ve sketched would be best.
I do at least suggest a fragment of a potential policy here.