DR

david_reinstein

3323 karmaJoined May 2017Monson, MA, USA

Bio

davidreinstein.org

I am a Senior Economist at Rethink Priorities (https://www.rethinkpriorities.org/our-team), previously an Economics lecturer/professor for 15 years

I'm working to impact EA fundraising and marketing; see https://bit.ly/eamtt

And projects bridging EA, academia, and open science (esp. the 'Unjournal') ... see bit.ly/eaprojects

My previous and ongoing research focuses on determinants and motivators of charitable giving (propensity, amounts, and 'to which cause?'), and drivers of/barriers to effective giving, as well as the impact of pro-social behavior and social preferences on market contexts.

Podcasts: "Found in the Struce" https://anchor.fm/david-reinstein

and the EA Forum podcast: https://anchor.fm/ea-forum-podcast (co-founder, regular reader)

Twitter: @givingtools

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Project Idea: 'Cost to save a life' interactive calculator promotion


What about making and promoting a ‘how much does it cost to save a life’ quiz and calculator.

 This could be adjustable/customizable (in my country, around the world, of an infant/child/adult, counting ‘value added life years’ etc.) … and trying to make it go viral (or at least bacterial) as in the ‘how rich am I’ calculator? 


The case 

  1. People might really be interested in this… it’s super-compelling (a bit click-baity, maybe, but the payoff is not click bait)!
  2. May make some news headlines too (it’s an “easy story” for media people, asks a question people can engage with, etc. … ’how much does it cost to save a life? find out after the break!)
  3. if people do think it’s much cheaper than it is, as some studies suggest, it would probably be good to change this conception… to help us build a reality-based impact-based evidence-based community and society of donors
  4. similarly, it could get people thinking about ‘how to really measure impact’ --> consider EA-aligned evaluations more seriously

While GiveWell has a page with a lot of tech details, but it’s not compelling or interactive  in the way I suggest above, and I doubt  they market it heavily.

GWWC probably doesn't have the design/engineering time for this (not to mention refining this for accuracy and communication).  But if someone else (UX design, research support, IT) could do the legwork I think they might be very happy to host it. 

It could also mesh well with academic-linked research so I may have  some ‘Meta academic support ads’ funds that could work with this.
 

Tags/backlinks (~testing out this new feature) 
@GiveWell  @Giving What We Can
Projects I'd like to see 

EA Projects I'd Like to See 
 Idea: Curated database of quick-win tangible, attributable projects 

Thanks for this!

I just wanted to add that we can evaluate work that is under review at a traditional journal. Also, having your work evaluated by The Unjournal does not prevent you from submitting it to a traditional journal (before, during, or after). The Unjournal gives you more feedback and a quantified evaluation sooner; it doesn't slow you down or limit your options.

But, as Ryan suggests, at this point in our trajectory we prefer to evaluate work early in the process, rather than work that is very close to being accepted in a peer-reviewed journal.

(Also, see our guidelines for evaluators for a view of the feedback and ratings/predictions we ask for.)

Answer by david_reinsteinJun 07, 202330

Anyone make progress on this? I might start an Airtable with 'lists of (lists of) EA relevant datasets' ... including the ones below and more

Wondering what the EA Mexico fellowship was like? I audio recorded some of my own experiences and chats, and I’m putting it into my podcast.

First episode: Turismo Eficaz, episode 1 (On the Podcast “Found in the Struce” … on all platforms)
 

This one has some discussion of AI safety areas and careers that people may find interesting and useful. 

If there's interest I'll put up a couple more episodes from my audio, with some discussions about the fellowship and potential future initiatives.

The earlier EA Survey Donation post (and linked notebook/Bookdown chapter on this) may be helpful. 

But I'm not sure which base group you are considering, or what measure you are considering

Base group: All people who identify as EAs, all US Americans, all people in the world, all people in the world with income above some value?

Metric: Top 1% in terms of absolute amounts given or in terms of share of income given? 

I think you might be able tease out the answer to some of your questions from [this paper](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Evolving-Distribution-of-Giving-in-the-United-Duquette/48b092a6436e213b45d86e090cce508ac16ab77d). Sorry I don't have the data/numbers to hand, I've worked on this before. 

Actually I'm wrong -- you see this when you hover-over; thanks Jack. I'll delete this comment

Wait a second I just realised a flaw in this system: I don’t think approval voting keeps track of how many people voted. Going forward PLEASE VOTE YES to this comment so I can keep count.

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Q8: Is it important for you that your parents would approve of you donating from your inheritance (i.e., would it make it easier for you to do so)?

Q6: Would you consider donating some substantial share of your inheritance to effective charities?

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