Hey! I'm Edo, married + 2 cats, I live in Tel-Aviv, Israel, and I feel weird writing about myself so I go meta.
I'm a mathematician, I love solving problems and helping people. My LinkedIn profile has some more stuff.
I'm a forum moderator, which mostly means that I care about this forum and about you! So let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
I'm currently working full-time at EA Israel, doing independent research and project management. Currently mostly working on evaluating the impact of for-profit tech companies, but I have many projects and this changes rapidly.
If you or someone else wants to expand on this point, I'd be interested in understanding whether that's really the case or in which ways it got better or worse
Is the issue highly polarized/politicized in Germany? Say, do you expect some people to engage less with your work as a result of "choosing sides"?
In EA Israel we tend to take more politically neutral approaches when engaging publicly, including in relation to the current war or to the large "pro-democratic" public protests (wiki). I'm curious about your attitude to reputational risks and the potential problem of "painting EA with leftist colors".
Usually we use purchase-parity adjustments when we look at the value of money, so there might be a subtle circular reasoning problem here. One issue for example is that there is no value in innovation (say, by designing a cheaper transportation service/product, people could end up paying less for the service so the revenue may decrease [while the profits could get higher]).
Another issue is that I don't think this could take into account counterfactual impact.
Didn't read through the whole thing yet, sorry if I missed how you addressed this issues! I love the idea of trying to find simpler ways of estimating impact!
How should we compare their (CCC's) cost-benefit estimates to GiveWell's (GW's) results?
I quickly spot two differences:
Points 1. and 2.a. are both indications that CCC's cost-benefit ratios are higher than GW-esque's cost-effectiveness ratios, while 2.b. goes to the other direction.
From the Tuberculosis paper, regarding value of a statistical life (VSL):
The GDP growth in this group of countries outpaces the population growth, so that the VSL grows rapidly over time. In constant 2020 US$ values, the benefit of an averted death is US$ 98,700 (2020), US$ 149,800 (2025), US$ 212,000 (2030), US$ 276,300 (2035), US$ 338,100 (2040), US$ 396,800 (2045), and US$ 456,000 (2050).
In comparison, GW estimates that one can save a life (or have equivalent impact) at about $5000. That's a factor of ~20. [I think this is misleading, so I'd be interested in a more careful comparison here, directly comparing VSL to doubling of consumption].
I'm also not sure how exactly to account for the differences in 2.
Exactly!