The GiveWell Blog

The case for cash

Our choice to name GiveDirectly as our #2 charity has drawn some surprise and criticism. GiveDirectly seeks to deliver 90c directly into the hands of the very poor (no strings attached) for every $1 of total organizational expenses. There are many people who consider this intervention “unproven” (since there is not research linking cash transfers…

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More on the ranking of our top charities

We previously wrote that we think cash transfers are likely to be significantly less cost-effective (in terms of “good accomplished per dollar donated”) than deworming; yet we rank GiveDirectly higher than Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. We gave some basic indications of our reasoning in the strengths/weaknesses table of our announcement post. Since then, we’ve had further…

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Cost-effectiveness of nets vs. deworming vs. cash transfers

Update 12/5/2014: we update our cost-effectiveness models annually. The most up-to-date versions can be found here.  This post discusses how we see the relative “bang-for-the-buck” – good accomplished per dollar spent – of three interventions: Distribution of insecticide-treated nets to fight malaria, the intervention carried out by our #1 charity (the Against Malaria Foundation). Unconditional direct…

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Evidence of impact for long-term benefits

We’ve recently published our updated review on the evidence on cash transfers. It elaborates on a claim we’ve made previously – that there is evidence for long-term benefits from cash transfers at high average rates of return. Some people have expressed skepticism of this evidence, pointing to several limitations: there are not many studies, some…

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Revisiting the case for developmental effects of deworming

This post discusses our detailed examination (including, with help from the authors, reanalyzing raw data) of the Miguel and Kremer 2004 study on deworming (treating people for parasite infections) as a way to raise school attendance, and a followup study (Baird et al. 2012) on the later-in-life impacts. Our current #3 charity, SCI, focuses on…

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