While I see the appeal of having an umbrella description of past approaches, I don’t think we explain the goal of impact measure research in terms of the average proposal so far, but rather, by what impact is. As I argued in the first half of Reframing Impact, people impact each other by changing the other person’s ability to achieve their goal. This is true no matter which impact measure you prefer.
I think that proposals generally fail or succeed to the extent that they are congruent with this understanding of impact. In particular, an impact measure is good for us to the extent that it penalizes policies which destroy our ability to get what we want.
While I see the appeal of having an umbrella description of past approaches, I don’t think we explain the goal of impact measure research in terms of the average proposal so far, but rather, by what impact is. As I argued in the first half of Reframing Impact, people impact each other by changing the other person’s ability to achieve their goal. This is true no matter which impact measure you prefer.
I think that proposals generally fail or succeed to the extent that they are congruent with this understanding of impact. In particular, an impact measure is good for us to the extent that it penalizes policies which destroy our ability to get what we want.