This is a big part of why I’m more optimistic about direct transfers like GiveDirectly. Standard charities act kind of like socialist economies and run into a lot of the same issues. When they’re operating inside of capitalist economies, they get some advantages through price signals to indicate what products people might want, but they still run into a lot of problems with top-down planning.
Of course, it’s complicated because some charities are plausibly more efficient because they use top-down planning and the planners correctly know that people should be spending their money on vaccines and not whatever else they would have bought for $0.50..
This is a big part of why I’m more optimistic about direct transfers like GiveDirectly. Standard charities act kind of like socialist economies and run into a lot of the same issues. When they’re operating inside of capitalist economies, they get some advantages through price signals to indicate what products people might want, but they still run into a lot of problems with top-down planning.
Of course, it’s complicated because some charities are plausibly more efficient because they use top-down planning and the planners correctly know that people should be spending their money on vaccines and not whatever else they would have bought for $0.50..