I have questioned before the wisdom of spending money to “save lives” in countries that do not have a functioning economy. If I save someone’s life, I’d prefer to think that their life will not need to be saved by my charity dollars again next year, and the year after that. It is not at all clear to me that GiveWell or other charities presents data that accounts for this. I’d be interested if you have done any analysis on the topic.
Instead of looking at a rough figure of the cost to “save a life” for an unspecified period of time, I’d prefer to see alternatives considered on the basis of the net present value of the external charity funds that will likely be required to continue saving an average’s person’s life for the next 70 years or so (without considering the related issue of cost-burden for geriatric medicine).
For example if we know a particular region has cycles of drought, war, famine and starvation every fifteen years or so, then instead of considering only the cost X—where X is the funds required to see a person through the present crisis—we should consider the cost of saving their life to be 70/15X. This method would favor spending in regions that are less likely to be in the same circumstances again and again.
I’d be interested if you have done any analysis on the topic.
I haven’t, because it seems obviously false to me. Africa’s population has been growing exponentially over the 20-21st centuries, aid to Africa has not, as far as I know. If conditions in Africa were so bad that aid contributed only a fixed number of life-days—if it only saved people to die another day, then I would not expect to see continued exponential growth but rather, re-hitting the Malthusian ceiling and quickly.
(One could try to explain this by saying the life expectancies and public health changes are thanks to non-aid Western inputs like regular commercial goods, but this strikes as an ad hoc explanation to try to deny the value of aid.)
I have questioned before the wisdom of spending money to “save lives” in countries that do not have a functioning economy. If I save someone’s life, I’d prefer to think that their life will not need to be saved by my charity dollars again next year, and the year after that. It is not at all clear to me that GiveWell or other charities presents data that accounts for this. I’d be interested if you have done any analysis on the topic.
Instead of looking at a rough figure of the cost to “save a life” for an unspecified period of time, I’d prefer to see alternatives considered on the basis of the net present value of the external charity funds that will likely be required to continue saving an average’s person’s life for the next 70 years or so (without considering the related issue of cost-burden for geriatric medicine).
For example if we know a particular region has cycles of drought, war, famine and starvation every fifteen years or so, then instead of considering only the cost X—where X is the funds required to see a person through the present crisis—we should consider the cost of saving their life to be 70/15X. This method would favor spending in regions that are less likely to be in the same circumstances again and again.
I haven’t, because it seems obviously false to me. Africa’s population has been growing exponentially over the 20-21st centuries, aid to Africa has not, as far as I know. If conditions in Africa were so bad that aid contributed only a fixed number of life-days—if it only saved people to die another day, then I would not expect to see continued exponential growth but rather, re-hitting the Malthusian ceiling and quickly.
(One could try to explain this by saying the life expectancies and public health changes are thanks to non-aid Western inputs like regular commercial goods, but this strikes as an ad hoc explanation to try to deny the value of aid.)