This is the first post to the new GiveWell Mailing List. The only differences with the old one are that it is now public, and now housed at Yahoo! groups...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Oct 19, 2008 8:25 pm
Below is the exchange between me and Simon. He went through the DCP and made our spreadsheet on interventions and cost-effectiveness estimates much more...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Oct 19, 2008 8:26 pm
I had a good conversation with Prabat Jha, one of the primary DCP2 authors, and it has affected the way I'm thinking about these issues. I told him I'd be...
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Brian Douglas Skinner
briandouglas...
Oct 20, 2008 8:33 pm
Hi, I'm Brian Douglas Skinner. I'm new to the GiveWell mailing list, so I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm a computer programmer in the San Francisco Bay...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Oct 21, 2008 2:45 pm
We haven't had people on the list introducing themselves, but it seems like a reasonable thing to be doing. I guess I'll just say that if anyone would like to...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Oct 22, 2008 6:40 am
As discussed in a previous email, I'm experimenting with the idea of going through charities one at a time and using their websites/annual reports to list all...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Nov 4, 2008 3:59 am
Our current top priorities on research are (1) creating a database of which charity does what (for as many charities as possible); (2) investigating the most...
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Brian Douglas Skinner
briandouglas...
Nov 29, 2008 12:35 am
Hey Holden & Elie, I recently read about "Gift4Giving", a new feature of the donor-advised funds available at the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund. You may have...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Nov 29, 2008 5:20 pm
Hi Brian, Thanks for the input. For future reference, this is the GiveWell Research Notes list - you should use info@... (or our individual...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 17, 2008 4:48 am
As Elie works on the feasibility of cataloguing charities' activities (and matching them to literature on past effectiveness at the micro level), I'm trying to...
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psteinx
Dec 17, 2008 5:27 am
I think those are some good questions to answer. I'd also like to see some info at an even higher macro level. i.e. It's not hard to find arguments that aid...
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simon knutsson
simonknutsson@...
Dec 17, 2008 6:36 pm
Hi, I have been a volunteer for GiveWell and I am currently a second year masters student in political science focusing on development. This long e-mail has...
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psteinx
Dec 17, 2008 7:32 pm
Simon - a couple of your comments crystallized some of my own thoughts a bit. ... The literature on each of the questions Holden poses in the e-mail from...
Thanks for the thoughts and for the references. I think there is some confusion between two different things we are trying to do: 1. Get a general sense of...
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Holden Karnofsky
holden0@...
Dec 19, 2008 5:46 pm
I checked out the Index of Global Philanthropy 2008 - it seems to discuss only sources of giving (countries, foundations, etc.) not what the aid was spent on....
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 19, 2008 10:49 pm
A reader has correctly pointed out that I shouldn't use acronyms without explaining them. In the below email: - WHO = World Health Organization - RCT =...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 20, 2008 12:14 am
I've been reflecting on the goal of getting experts to help us with our research. We tried this earlier in the year, and didn't have great results. I think...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 20, 2008 2:31 am
I've created a more thorough writeup on the Easterly paper ("Can the West Save Africa?")'s answers to our general aid questions - organized by question, with...
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psteinx
Dec 20, 2008 3:50 am
I like your summary, and you've gotten to the core of at least some key questions, albeit with answers from only one source. Yes, it seems Easterly is in turn...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 20, 2008 5:16 am
I went through the 20 "success stories" from the Center for Global Development report. They are at ...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 25, 2008 3:51 am
I've now had some preliminary exposure to what I believe are the three "biggest names" in general debates over international aid: Jeffrey Sachs, William...
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psteinx
Dec 25, 2008 5:24 am
Good bits Holden. Some thoughts: I think the issues raised by these three (and perhaps others) are pretty important in assessing aid to Africa and the...
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Holden Karnofsky
holden0@...
Dec 25, 2008 5:44 am
Sachs and Easterly don't appear to engage each other directly as much as I'd expected/hoped. The basic outline of the disagreement seems to be along the lines...
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Lindy Miller Crane
hellolindy@...
Dec 25, 2008 4:00 pm
You should also check out Abhijit Banerjee's book "Making Aid Work". ... -- Lindy Miller Crane **We are the ones we have been waiting for.**...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 25, 2008 4:40 pm
The most promising data source I've found is through the OECD's Development-Cooperation Directorate (http://www.oecd.org/dac). This is the data cited in an...
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psteinx
Dec 25, 2008 5:56 pm
Easterly and Sachs did engage each other reasonably directly a few years ago. This page chronicles at least some (perhaps all) of that: ...
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Holden Karnofsky
holden0@...
Dec 27, 2008 2:54 am
Thanks for highlighting this. I checked it out and a couple of the things Sachs said prompted me to go back to the CMH report with more attention to this...
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Holden Karnofsky
holden0@...
Dec 27, 2008 3:25 am
At the same time as I'm scanning these topics, I'm also trying to make sure I don't get lost in them. A question like "Why have some parts of the world ...
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Holden Karnofsky
Holden@...
Dec 30, 2008 5:50 am
"A Primer on Foreign Aid" by Stephen Radelet ( http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/8846/) reviews the aid/growth literature on pgs 8-11, and is...
