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Mea­sur­ing and com­par­ing value

TagLast edit: Jan 13, 2022, 5:36 PM by Leo

Measuring how much value interventions create can help us to evaluate their cost-effectiveness.

Ideally, we would measure the things we value directly. Unfortunately, we often value things that are difficult to measure, so that we must instead measure other variables that are closely related to what we do value. For instance, we may try to measure the impact of an intervention on someone’s health, because improving health tends to improve wellbeing. Although we ultimately care about wellbeing rather than health, the latter is a relatively good measure of the former, which is hard to measure directly.

It can also be worthwhile to assess the value of things that matter only instrumentally, such as the value of information, and to consider how value may change over time, as represented by discount rates.

Further reading

Grace, Katja (2014) Apples and oranges? Some initial thoughts on comparing diverse benefits, Giving What We Can, May 22.
A discussion of various means of measurement and comparison.

Wikipedia (2007) Happiness economics, Wikipedia, July 4 (updated 17 February 2021‎).
A discussion of the measurement of happiness.

Can we trust wellbe­ing sur­veys? A pi­lot study of com­pa­ra­bil­ity, lin­ear­ity, and neutrality

Conrad SMar 17, 2023, 10:17 AM
73 points
10 comments10 min readEA link
(www.happierlivesinstitute.org)

Rel­a­tive Value Func­tions: A Flex­ible New For­mat for Value Estimation

Ozzie GooenMay 18, 2023, 4:39 PM
58 points
23 comments18 min readEA link

Mea­sur­ing Good Better

MichaelPlantOct 14, 2022, 1:36 PM
235 points
19 comments15 min readEA link

How much do you be­lieve your re­sults?

Eric NeymanMay 5, 2023, 7:51 PM
211 points
14 comments1 min readEA link

On Child Wast­ing, Mega-Char­i­ties, and Mea­sura­bil­ity Bias

Jesper 🔸May 7, 2023, 2:55 PM
54 points
24 comments2 min readEA link

“Di­men­sions of Pain” work­shop: Sum­mary and up­dated conclusions

Rethink PrioritiesAug 21, 2023, 3:56 PM
88 points
8 comments13 min readEA link

Es­ti­mat­ing value from pair­wise comparisons

Jonas MossOct 5, 2022, 11:23 AM
34 points
3 comments1 min readEA link
(blog.jonasmoss.com)

Effec­tive­ness is a Con­junc­tion of Multipliers

Thomas KwaMar 25, 2022, 6:44 PM
259 points
34 comments4 min readEA link

The price is right

EJTOct 16, 2023, 4:34 PM
27 points
5 comments4 min readEA link
(openairopensea.substack.com)

Com­par­i­son be­tween the he­do­nic util­ity of hu­man life and poul­try liv­ing time

Vasco Grilo🔸Jun 8, 2022, 7:52 AM
47 points
28 comments14 min readEA link

Mo­ral Weights ac­cord­ing to EA Orgs

Simon_MJan 8, 2023, 4:46 PM
111 points
15 comments1 min readEA link

Welfare Foot­print Pro­ject—a blueprint for quan­tify­ing an­i­mal pain

MichaelStJulesJun 26, 2021, 8:05 PM
73 points
2 comments2 min readEA link

List of ways in which cost-effec­tive­ness es­ti­mates can be misleading

sauliusAug 20, 2019, 6:05 PM
236 points
37 comments13 min readEA link

$5k challenge to quan­tify the im­pact of 80,000 hours’ top ca­reer paths

NunoSempereSep 23, 2022, 11:32 AM
126 points
14 comments6 min readEA link

Sim­ple com­par­i­son pol­ling to cre­ate util­ity functions

NunoSempereNov 15, 2021, 7:48 PM
46 points
13 comments6 min readEA link

Cost-effec­tive­ness of op­er­a­tions man­age­ment in high-im­pact organisations

Vasco Grilo🔸Nov 27, 2022, 10:33 AM
48 points
11 comments12 min readEA link

Longterm cost-effec­tive­ness of Founders Pledge’s Cli­mate Change Fund

Vasco Grilo🔸Sep 14, 2022, 3:11 PM
36 points
9 comments6 min readEA link

[Question] Do peo­ple have a form or re­sources for cap­tur­ing in­di­rect in­ter­per­sonal im­pacts?

PeterSlatteryJan 4, 2023, 4:47 AM
47 points
6 comments1 min readEA link

Trans­for­ma­tive AI and Com­pute—Read­ing List

Frederik BergSep 4, 2023, 6:21 AM
24 points
0 comments1 min readEA link
(docs.google.com)

About ‘sub­jec­tive’ wellbe­ing and cost-effec­tive­ness anal­y­sis in men­tal health

LondonGalJul 30, 2023, 1:39 PM
74 points
14 comments41 min readEA link

How we work, #1: Cost-effec­tive­ness is gen­er­ally the most im­por­tant fac­tor in our recommendations

GiveWellOct 27, 2023, 9:40 PM
36 points
8 comments6 min readEA link
(blog.givewell.org)

[Question] How do in­spired con­tri­bu­tions and ex­ter­nal­ized costs fac­tor in cost-effec­tive­ness calcu­la­tions?

VictorWAug 8, 2023, 9:43 PM
12 points
8 comments2 min readEA link

Valu­ing Im­pacts Across Species: A Re­search Agenda

Bob FischerNov 4, 2024, 11:55 AM
45 points
1 comment22 min readEA link

Value of Life: VSL Es­ti­mates vs Com­mu­nity Per­spec­tive Evaluations

Joel Tan🔸Sep 6, 2022, 2:35 PM
53 points
4 comments4 min readEA link

A Pa­tient’s Per­spec­tive of Mea­sur­ing Health Outcomes

quinngraceNov 28, 2024, 8:46 PM
18 points
4 comments11 min readEA link

A pod­cast epi­sode ex­plor­ing cri­tiques of effec­tive al­tru­ism (with Michael Niel­sen and Ajeya Co­tra)

spencergSep 1, 2022, 4:13 PM
14 points
4 comments1 min readEA link
(clearerthinkingpodcast.com)

Open Philan­thropy Should Fund Fur­ther Cause Exploration

brb243Jul 8, 2022, 11:47 PM
3 points
0 comments13 min readEA link

[Question] When should the in­verse-var­i­ance method be ap­plied to dis­tri­bu­tions?

Vasco Grilo🔸Jun 14, 2022, 2:33 PM
5 points
6 comments1 min readEA link

The Challenges with Mea­sur­ing the Im­pact of Lobbying

Animal AskOct 31, 2022, 4:32 PM
58 points
1 comment33 min readEA link

[Question] Are there im­por­tant things that aren’t quan­tifi­able?

JosephSep 12, 2022, 11:49 AM
9 points
2 comments1 min readEA link

Cor­po­rate cam­paigns for chicken welfare are 10,000 times as effec­tive as GiveWell’s Max­i­mum Im­pact Fund?

Vasco Grilo🔸Jul 28, 2022, 8:22 AM
78 points
19 comments10 min readEA link

Mo­ral weights for var­i­ous species and distributions

Vasco Grilo🔸Jul 3, 2022, 6:19 PM
15 points
10 comments3 min readEA link

[Question] What is the re­la­tion­ship be­tween im­pact and EA Fo­rum karma?

Vasco Grilo🔸Dec 6, 2022, 10:42 AM
14 points
3 comments3 min readEA link

A peek at pair­wise prefer­ence es­ti­ma­tion in eco­nomics, mar­ket­ing, and statistics

Jonas MossOct 8, 2022, 4:56 AM
31 points
5 comments3 min readEA link
(blog.jonasmoss.com)

Th­e­sis Sum­mary and Open Ques­tions: Nor­ma­tive Uncer­tainty and In­for­ma­tion Value

rileyharrisApr 27, 2022, 8:46 AM
32 points
0 comments3 min readEA link

The Wages of North-At­lantic Bias

Sach WryAug 19, 2022, 12:34 PM
8 points
2 comments17 min readEA link

Es­ti­mat­ing the Aver­age Im­pact of an ARPA-E Grantmaker

charrinDec 1, 2022, 6:34 AM
22 points
8 comments2 min readEA link

How to de­ter­mine dis­tri­bu­tion pa­ram­e­ters from quantiles

Vasco Grilo🔸May 30, 2022, 3:20 PM
23 points
7 comments1 min readEA link
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