david_reinstein
Bio
I'm the Founder and Co-director of The Unjournal; We organize and fund public journal-independent feedback, rating, and evaluation of hosted papers and dynamically-presented research projects. We will focus on work that is highly relevant to global priorities (especially in economics, social science, and impact evaluation). We will encourage better research by making it easier for researchers to get feedback and credible ratings on their work.
Previously I was a Senior Economist at Rethink Priorities, and before that n 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.. 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
Posts 60
Comments846
Topic contributions9
Unjournal.org is piloting an expansion into evaluating legal research. Please contact me if you are interested.
Policy-focused grad student groups
I think there could be value in running EA groups for niche populations of students who might go on to have high-leverage roles. Policy students strike me as one of the clearer targets for this.
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Career panels or similar: Career-focused events targeting specific groups, such as late-stage PhD students in economics or public health, could be impactful during critical decision-making periods.
The Unjournal would be interested in helping facilitate and sponsor reading/discussion/evaluation groups for PhD students, especially in economics and policy. This could be compatible with and linked to such grad student groups and career events.
If you are an academic or PhD student interested in piloting and organizing this, please contact me/us. You can also peruse our notes on this potential initiative here and add comments.
I expect there are some cohort effects (people in more recent generations have a higher probability of being involved). In particular, many people get into EA via university groups (although it may not be the place they 'first heard' about it; see David Moss' reply), and these groups have only been around a decade or so.
But I also imagine some pure age effects (as people age they leave/are less likely to enter), perhaps driven by things like
1. Homophily/identity/herding: If you only see people unlike you (agewise) you're less likely to think you belong. This leads to inertia.
2. Cost and family priorities: EA ~expects/encourages people to donate a substantial share of their income, or do directly impactful work (which may be less remunerative or secure). For older people the donation share/lost income could seem more substantial, esp. if they are used to their lifecycle. Or probably more significantly, for parents it may be harder to do what seems like 'taking money away from their children.
3. Status and prestige issues: EA leaders tend to be young, EA doesn't value seniority or credentials as much (which is probably a good thing). But older people might feel ~disrespected by this. Or second order: they might think that their age-peers and colleagues will think less of them if they are following or 'taking direction' from ~'a bunch of kids'. E.g., as a jr. professor at an academic conference if you are seated at the grad students' table you might feel insecure.
4. Issues and expertise that are relevant tends to be 'new stuff' that older people won't have learned or won't be familiar with. AI Safety is the biggest one, but there are other examples like Bayesian approaches.
(Identity politics bit: I'm 48 years old, and some of this is based on my own impressions, but not all of it.)
I expect a lot of people might be attracted to something like PfG now on the following (not entirely utilitarian/EA grounds). This could be a potential catalyst.
1. ~Liberals and moderates in the US and abroad (people who support democratic institutions the rule of law, oppose DOGE shutting down USAID, the corruption, etc.) don't want to buy from any of the companies supporting Trump or ~bribing him. Amazon.com springs most to mind.
2. I think PfG is not about moral purity, it's more about utilitarian 'do the most good'. But companies that donate (most of) their profits to GH&D, environmental, or animal welfare charities are very unlikely to be Trump-backed oligarchs/cronies. In fact, it might be impossible for them to do so because their donations would code them as liberals/globalists/whatever.
3. So it's a good proxy. Liberals+ could use PfG to find alternatives to Amazon etc.
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
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