"The value of money going to different groups" (...the very very poor vs the very very very poor) by Toby Ord -- reading & discussion
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Would it be better for
- $100 to go to someone living on $300 a year or
- $200 to go to someone earning $500 per year?
This is a really tough choice, but one organizations like GiveDirectly need to think about. How can we consider it?
I read and discuss Toby Ord's EA Forum post and linked CEA article. And I interject, explain, and comment. A lot.
(By the way, I leave some hypothes.is comments on the latter page, if you want to engage.)
This ties into longstanding a major theoretical and empirical questions in Economics (Welfare economics, Public Choice, Development, Risk preference elicitation, Happiness). But I think it's thorny unresolved.
But practical choices must be made that rely crucially on how we value (e.g.) the above A versus B. And I really don't know how major orgs (like the World Bank, the UN, USAID, DFiD, WHO, Gates Foundation) and think tanks/research groups (like JPAL, IPA, CGDEV) consider these tradeoffs.
Get in touch (or leave a message on Anchor) if you want to add to this conversation, or have some suggested references and redings.
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