It seems a bit transparent to me that there’s no such thing as a “best level of aid to the Third World”. That’s asking “How much money do you have to throw at the problem to stop feeling guilty?” There are only marginal efficiencies which determine how much resources you would want to flow in that direction. In the case of Africa, African economists are pleading with us to stop the aid because it’s destroying their continent. I don’t know about the rest of the Third World. In any case it has to go project by project.
1. A question posed simply in terms of “the best level” would be measuring some sort of tangled-up combination of respondents’ values and their opinions about facts. That might be a bad thing (though I note that the question about political affiliation, at least, has the same feature). Instead, one could ask something like “what level of aid do you think would maximize Africa’s GDP after 20 years?” or “what level of aid do you think would maximize average expected QALYs at birth over the whole human population”.
2. When considering an individual’s charitable activity, of course we should think in terms of marginal efficiencies. That’s not so clear when considering the question of the total amount of aid that might go from the affluent West to the Third World.
3. You mean (unless you have relevant information I don’t, which is eminently possible) that some African economists are saying that the aid is harmful. It would be much more interesting to know typical African economists’ opinions. If nothing else, there is obvious sampling bias here: if two African economists approach an American publisher, one proposing to write a book saying “Aid is actively harmful; stop it now” and one proposing to write one saying “Aid is useful; please do a bit more of it”, which one is going to get the contract? It seems to me that there are multiple different factors making it far more likely to be the first one that have scarcely any correlation with the actual truth of the matter.
4. Yes, of course, actual decisions need to be made project by project. That doesn’t mean that one can’t hold an opinion about the approximate gross amount of aid there should be. (Such as, for instance, “none”, which is an opinion you don’t seem to object to even though it’s the ultimate in not-project-by-project answers since it necessarily returns the same answer for every project.)
AIUI, It matters immensely what type of aid you’re talking about, the processes by which it is distributed, anti-corruption mechanisms etc. Giving away food grown in Western countries is disastrous, microcredit, vaccinations, educating women etc. not so much. In any case I took the question to be trying to ascertain community positions on distributive justice issues and Western obligations to the developing world rather than distributive efficiency. So if there is really a widespread sense a question about aid wouldn’t reflect those sorts of positions maybe a more theoretical question would be better.
It seems a bit transparent to me that there’s no such thing as a “best level of aid to the Third World”. That’s asking “How much money do you have to throw at the problem to stop feeling guilty?” There are only marginal efficiencies which determine how much resources you would want to flow in that direction. In the case of Africa, African economists are pleading with us to stop the aid because it’s destroying their continent. I don’t know about the rest of the Third World. In any case it has to go project by project.
1. A question posed simply in terms of “the best level” would be measuring some sort of tangled-up combination of respondents’ values and their opinions about facts. That might be a bad thing (though I note that the question about political affiliation, at least, has the same feature). Instead, one could ask something like “what level of aid do you think would maximize Africa’s GDP after 20 years?” or “what level of aid do you think would maximize average expected QALYs at birth over the whole human population”.
2. When considering an individual’s charitable activity, of course we should think in terms of marginal efficiencies. That’s not so clear when considering the question of the total amount of aid that might go from the affluent West to the Third World.
3. You mean (unless you have relevant information I don’t, which is eminently possible) that some African economists are saying that the aid is harmful. It would be much more interesting to know typical African economists’ opinions. If nothing else, there is obvious sampling bias here: if two African economists approach an American publisher, one proposing to write a book saying “Aid is actively harmful; stop it now” and one proposing to write one saying “Aid is useful; please do a bit more of it”, which one is going to get the contract? It seems to me that there are multiple different factors making it far more likely to be the first one that have scarcely any correlation with the actual truth of the matter.
4. Yes, of course, actual decisions need to be made project by project. That doesn’t mean that one can’t hold an opinion about the approximate gross amount of aid there should be. (Such as, for instance, “none”, which is an opinion you don’t seem to object to even though it’s the ultimate in not-project-by-project answers since it necessarily returns the same answer for every project.)
How would everyone feel about a question phrased something like:
“True or false: the marginal effect of extra money being given to aid in Africa through a charity like UNICEF is generally positive.”
AIUI, It matters immensely what type of aid you’re talking about, the processes by which it is distributed, anti-corruption mechanisms etc. Giving away food grown in Western countries is disastrous, microcredit, vaccinations, educating women etc. not so much. In any case I took the question to be trying to ascertain community positions on distributive justice issues and Western obligations to the developing world rather than distributive efficiency. So if there is really a widespread sense a question about aid wouldn’t reflect those sorts of positions maybe a more theoretical question would be better.