All of Max Ghenis's Comments + Replies

Yeah both my cofounder Nikhil and I are longtime EAs :) We have a couple projects in the works on tying PolicyEngine to EA , which we'll probably launch in the next couple months.

Nikhil is actually in the UK as well (I'm in DC), so could you please connect him to the EAGx Cambridge folks? He's nikhil@policyengine.org.

You can also use PolicyEngine UK (my nonprofit's free, open source web app) to estimate your taxes and benefits given your income and household characteristics. It captures nuances like the Child Benefit High Income Tax Charge and phase-outs of Universal Credit and the Personal Allowance, and shows your total marginal tax rate considering these factors.

You can also design custom policy reforms, and PolicyEngine estimates the impact, both on the UK and your own household.

I'm all for this, though I've got a dog in the fight: I'm ED of PolicyEngine, a nonprofit that largely intends to improve epistemics around economic policymaking by making epistemic tech available to everyone. Our free, open source software estimates households' taxes and benefit eligibility, and lets users design customizable policy reforms and estimate impacts on society and households.

Since you mentioned a carbon tax, our new app beta.policyengine.org, which we'll launch in January, lets you design a custom carbon tax in the UK. Here's a 2-minute video ... (read more)

How many consumption-doublings does a policy reform generate?

GiveDirectly's unconditional cash transfers have long served as GiveWell's cost-effectiveness baseline. GiveWell's 2022 cost-effectiveness analysis estimates that GiveDirectly doubles the consumption of a person for a year for about $200. ^[1]

Tax and benefit reforms also affect households' consumption. My nonprofit, PolicyEngine, builds free open-source software that computes the impact of custom tax and benefit reforms on outcomes like poverty and the budget. This slide from my EAGxBerkeley ... (read more)

My colleague Ahmed Ahmed and I summarized research on fertility in the context of the US Child Tax Credit expansion in this UBI Center report last year. We cited the Lyman Stone article from here:

Stone’s research suggests that making it permanent could close between 15% and 65% of the gap to a replacement fertility rate.

My nonprofit PolicyEngine has also been scoping how to predict fertility impacts in our app that computes the impact of custom tax and benefit reforms. Our shallow dive hasn't turned up standard elasticities with respect to current-year... (read more)

Really interesting post. Not to hijack it, but I didn't know about the EA Forecasting & Epistemics Slack. Can you point me to info on it or how to join?

Web app implementing giving pledges based on net income (after taxes and benefits)

The Giving What We Can Pledge is 10% of pre-tax income, if giving is tax-deductible, or 10% of post-tax income otherwise. We've scoped a different pledge, in which one gives the amount such that their net income after taxes and benefits falls 10%. You can also think of this as transferring 10% of your consumption to effective charity.

We propose building a web app where people enter their household information and it suggests the amount to give. The app would call the free, op... (read more)

Thirdly, the question of whether going veg*n strengthens your altruistic motivations is an empirical one which I feel pretty uncertain about. There may well be a moral licensing effect where veg*ns feel (disproportionately) like they’ve done their fair share of altruistic action; or maybe parts of you will become resentful about these constraints. This probably varies a lot for different people.

Related to this is this study finding:

Across six experiments, including one conducted with individuals involved in policymaking, we show that introducing a gre

Makes sense and glad to see more EA centralization around Slack.

I might just suggest clarifying in this post that HIE is a community of physical engineers, as the website states.

My Operations Research degree definitely primed me for EA. Agree with this post.

I'd also add that economic forecasting involves OR techniques, and I think there are opportunities to integrate economic forecasts more into prediction platforms. This is my area of research, and for example my colleagues and I have recently used optimization to identify universal basic income policies that minimize disruption against the status quo, in the UK and in the US.

Some may also want to consider how passing up pay will affect benefit eligibility. If you can lower your income to 200% of the poverty line, under current Covid-related policy, you can get the maximum SNAP benefit for your household size in many states, including Massachusetts. That in turn entitles you to other benefits like broadband and school meal subsidies.

All together, a family of four in MA can gain about $12,000 per year by getting their income just below 200% of the poverty line ($55k). That's based on my nonprofit's free open-source app, PolicyEn... (read more)

Thank you! How much of this would you amend for starting a CIO instead?

Could you share a Google Docs version of the application form? The FTX Future Fund linked this at the top, and I found it helpful for planning out the application with others.

Came here to suggest this. Open source demonstrates to hiring managers that you know how to collaborate, which is at least as important as the technical skills in many cases.

There are even good EA open source projects like microcovid and the template for the EA forum (my nonprofit that builds tech for public policy analysis is also fully open source and welcomes contributors on GitHub, happy to chat with anyone interested).

Awesome post. I'd just add that you've reported a lower bound. Per https://ftxfuturefund.org/announcing-the-future-fund:

We plan to distribute at least $100M this year, and potentially a lot more, depending on how many outstanding opportunities we find. In principle, we’d be able to deploy up to $1B this year.

Regarding the dating app, it could also spawn a new generation of mega-EA children. But seriously, at least increase the number of future EAs.

It could also increase total fertility, which the FTX Future Fund identifies as an important project due to its effect on economic growth.

Somewhat related, I submitted "Comprehensive, personalized, open source simulation engine for public policy reforms". Governments could also use the simulation engine to explore policy reforms and to improve operations, e.g. to establish individual households' eligibility for means-tested benefit programs.

Cool - you might also be interested in my submission, "Comprehensive, personalized, open source simulation engine for public policy reforms". It's not in the pitch but my intent is for it to be global as well.

Comprehensive, personalized, open source simulation engine for public policy reforms

Epistemic Institutions, Economic Growth, Values and Reflective Processes

Policy researchers apply quantitative modeling to estimate the impacts of immigration reform on GDP, child benefits on fertility, safety net reform on poverty, carbon pricing on emissions, and other policies. But these analyses are typically narrow, impersonal, inflexible, and closed-source, and the public can rarely access the models that produce them.

We'd like to see a general simulation engine—built ... (read more)

Framing it as EA hubs that also happen to serve vegan food could come off as less cultish. The restaurant could also donate 10% of revenue to GiveWell. Edit: Or let the customer select a GiveWell charity to receive 10% of their bill.

That report doesn't include CCL.

Democrats do support a carbon tax:

• Democrats almost passed carbon pricing in 2009
• 12 US states price carbon (almost all run by Democrats)
• All Democratic senators, with the possible exception of Manchin, support a carbon tax in BBB, and Romney also supports a carbon tax (so it could be one of multiple reconciliation bills)
• The House Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act has 93 Democratic cosponsors
• The Senate Save our Future Act has 9 Democratic cosponsors

Every other developed country has priced carbon. Only Australia ... (read more)

Decentralization is a choice that donors should consider. Sunrise funds empower local chapters that advocate counterproductive climate policies. Their choice also not to actively support critical policies like carbon pricing is also relevant, especially given studies showing that emphasizing less-effective climate policies reduces interest in more effective ones.

If they were the only grassroots climate org and they generated interest in broad climate action, it might be worth the trade-off. But interest in climate is strong and other organizations like Ci... (read more)

This just came up in my Nonlinear feed and I haven't yet listened to it in full, but one concern I have with organizations like XR is that they tend not to advocate specific climate policies, and when they do it's often not the most effective ones. In particular, they don't advocate carbon pricing, nuclear power, infill housing development, and carbon capture, and in some cases they oppose these policies.

I'm active in Citizens' Climate Lobby, which is a grassroots group advocating a carbon fee-and-dividend model, mostly in the US. Carbon pricing is probabl... (read more)

Have you researched Citizens' Climate Lobby? They're a grassroots organization advocating carbon fee-and-dividend policy, mostly in the US. All credible studies I've seen indicate that we cannot reach our climate goals without carbon pricing; for example, this study finds that a carbon tax starting at $15 per ton would more than double the emissions reductions of the Build Back Better Act.

Polls suggest that returning carbon tax revenue as a dividend increases its popularity, though carbon pricing polls strongly net-positive either way: about +36 net favora... (read more)

I find your estimate of Sunrise's cost-effectiveness of $0.22 per mtCO2e extremely implausible. Sunrise and its chapters have opposed essentially all of the most important policies for reducing emissions:

• Carbon pricing
• Nuclear power
• Dense infill housing
• Carbon capture

Your Sunrise deep dive does not discuss any of these issues.

This blog post establishes some links between housing scarcity and immigration:

Only the wealthiest, best-educated immigrants move [to California], and most refugee resettlement agencies no longer place families in San Francisco because of the city’s high housing costs. The city accepts 95% fewer refugees than just a few years ago. Who actually welcome immigrants and refugees? Cities like Houston, Phoenix, and Atlanta that have lower costs of living.

Cavaille and Ferwerda (2017) provide a well-identified channel:

Empirically, we leverage an EU legal dir

Indeed when I spoke to people from my department about challenge trials, none had both heard of and thought extensively about the issue. One respondent wished to emphasize that they hadn’t thought about this issue much yet at all when deciding. Bioethicists are no worse than the average person on the streets, but that doesn’t mean they are much better either, and maybe they should be.

This surprises and concerns me. Challenge trials seem like a textbook bioethics topic, and even if they weren't, I'd expect that people trained to think carefully about the... (read more)

In addition to GDP effects, liberalizing zoning ties to other EA cause areas. For example, density allows for more immigrants and averts climate change. This study finds that

...doubling the population density would entail a reduction in the total [per capita] CO2 emissions in buildings and on-road sectors typically by at least 42%.

I'd love to see all these factors tied together in a cohesive EA analysis, from a dollar donated to the number of homes legalized and downstream benefits of those homes. I've contributed quite a bit of volunteer time to YIMBY... (read more)

I would like to see near-term EAs like GiveWell looking more at the long-term implications of the interventions they recommend and more speculative but potentially higher return interventions such as policy change

I wholeheartedly agree. Last month, GiveDirectly criticized GiveWell for ignoring externalities of cash transfers, and while I think this is sort of unfair given they also ignore externalities of malaria prevention, I genuinely don't know what kind of multiplier to put on various effective short-term interventions.

In my post, Mortality, existen... (read more)

EA cause areas now include quite a bit of policy advocacy:

• Open Phil supports Farm Animal Welfare, Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy, Immigration Policy, and Land Use Reform (edit: and until recently, Criminal Justice Reform) in the US.
• The Founders Pledge Climate Fund supports policy advocacy; they estimate that their top charity, the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, averts a ton of CO2 for $0.12 through policy.
• Notable EAs like SBF have given to political campaigns like Biden's, and Kyle Bogosian has applied EA-style rigor to rank candidates in terms

An affluent EA could buy a trusted newspaper and direct it in a more evidence-based direction, for instance, by incorporating forecasts into reporting or by highlighting certain positive developments that get neglected.

Have any EA organizations tried to partner with FiveThirtyEight?

I think poverty reduction can decrease the risk of unaligned AGI through two channels:

1. Poverty reduces (or is at least associated with lower) patience, trust, and attitudes around global cooperation. Evidence is of varying quality on these points, as I discuss in the relevant sections above, but if it holds, societies with less poverty will be more cautious around existential risks like AGI.
2. More egalitarian economies expand access to markets, and since lots of AI is trained on transactions data, they will better represent the diversity of humanity. This

I think it still suggests 37 million in extreme poverty in the US.

I'd also suggest using the Supplemental Poverty Measure for US poverty. Unlike the Official Poverty Measure, it incorporates taxes, non-cash benefits, and variation in local housing costs. The current SPM poverty rate is 9.1%.

Hi everyone! I'm a longtime EA but I haven't spent much time on the EA Forum, so taking this opportunity to introduce myself.

Professionally, I'm an economist in California focused on tax and benefit policy. I'm the co-founder and CEO of PolicyEngine, a tech nonprofit whose product lets anyone reform the tax and benefit system and see the quantified impact on society and one's own household (we're live in the UK and working on a US model). I'm also the founder and president of the UBI Center, a think tank researching universal basic income policies. Outside... (read more)

I like Campaign Zero's data-driven prioritization of solutions, but it's not clear to me how they'd use marginal funds. I suspect this gap explains its absence from CEAs and Open Phil recommendation lists.

One element of this I'd like to understand better is the trade-off between donating your own compute (i.e. donating money you're spending on electricity) compared to donating money directly to a protein folding effort that utilizes cloud computing. In general, how do the hardware savings of using an existing device compare to the greater efficiency of cloud computing? Is the key innovation of Folding@Home that they're able to obtain in-kind electricity donations from people who wouldn't otherwise donate money to fund the effort?

Very interesting analysis! The study on passionate love and cognition might be more about early stage love right? If so, this would be a small cost of the intervention. As an observational data point suggesting positive economic impacts, married men earn up to 70% more than single men (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/married-men-earn-more-than-single-or-married-women-and-single-men-2018-09-19).

How did Facebook's $7 million match in 2019 compare with the probabilities modeled?

I see two reasons to adjust the benefit of this practice downward:

1) Some of Facebook's potential match would otherwise have nonzero benefit, and some (small) fraction would go to EA causes.

2) (More importantly) You can't donate stock through the Facebook Fundraiser platform. Donating stock (or index funds) allows you to not incur capital gains taxes, which for most people would be about 15% LTCG tax * 10% return = 1.5% per year.

If you expect your income to increase over time (all else equal this is reasonable), that's an extra reason to bunch. However, it throws a wrench in an alternative to front-load bunching, i.e. give 50% in year 1 and then only 10% of your raise since year 1 in the subsequent four years.

Would you still offset if society enacted a carbon fee-and-dividend, e.g. with the price equal to the social cost of carbon? Such a policy would also internalize the externality without compensating for the specific harm.

In part this may come down to whether you see climate change as a threat separate from other societal problems. I see it as a mechanism that takes its toll on broadly-comparable outcomes like DALYs and economic growth. From that perspective, the harms (and therefore the offsets) are comparable to the harms of, e.g., not providing bednets.

I like half of offsets: It's important to internalize externalities, and if the state has failed to do this with carbon pricing, it makes sense to self-assess a carbon tax to incentivize yourself to reduce emissions.

But once you've raised a certain amount from that self-assessed carbon tax, why limit to climate causes? Conversely, if Coalition for Rainforest Nations is the most cost-effective charity out there (8 metric tons of CO2 averted per dollar), then why only donate to it from your carbon tax bucket and not, say, your Giving What We Can bu... (read more)

Someone asked how Hillary Clinton would have fared. Might be a lot of work but she and Obama would make interesting benchmarks. https://twitter.com/JohnCarltonKing/status/1123325554378313728

Would be good to have Bill Weld in a subsequent revision.

Donate to Delaney here: https://go.johndelaney.com/page/content/this-is-about-america/

He'll also give $2 to a nonprofit for each donation he gets (none of the options are EA charities).

Incredible report, bravo! Like probably anyone, I don't agree completely with the ratings, but the structure and research helped me think through my own priorities. I was already interested in supporting Delaney, so this motivates me to ask more people to give him a donation to get on the debate stage.

I have some minor suggestions, which I left in this copy.

Beyond that, my only non-minor suggestion is to consider mentioning domestic poverty as a (potential) priority area, even if it ends up not included due to the thresholds. Depending on the poverty ... (read more)