There are many studies attempting to gauge microloans’ impact on borrowers, but most suffer from the problem of selection bias: by comparing participants and non-participants, they may be picking up other differences between these groups (for example, people who participate in microloan programs may be wealthier to begin with, so a study showing that they…
The GiveWell Blog
Year: 2009
PRI and Bloggingheads
A couple of recent web/media appearances: Last week I appeared briefly on PRI’s The World – link here. A recent Bloggingheads between Tyler Cowen and Peter Singer includes an interesting exchange about charity effectiveness including the advantages of GiveWell’s approach, the limits of the “overhead expense ratio,” and Prof. Cowen’s preferred alternative of sending money…
Can the Green Revolution be repeated in Africa?
In his Annual Letter, Bill Gates describes the “Green Revolution”: Almost every country that has become wealthy started with a huge increase in farming productivity. Chart 4 shows the increase in output per acre for various grains, including wheat, corn, and rice, in the United States, India, China, and Africa since 1961. This dramatic increase…
Measurement is not as common as it should be. Why?
The idea that there should be more measurement appears to be one of the points of widest agreement in the literature on aid. But we believe that agreement in principle is unlikely to mean much until donors (both large and small) act on it. It isn’t enough to request better information; we need to reserve…
Review of The Life You Can Save, by Peter Singer
The Life You Can Save went on sale in the U.S. on Monday. First, disclosures: the book prominently features GiveWell, a portion of the book’s proceeds are being donated to GiveWell, and I was sent an advance copy. I have strong incentives to encourage people to read and buy the book. So let me start…
The Center for High Impact Philanthropy
We’re very excited about the Center for High Impact Philanthropy, which recently released two reports: one focusing on increasing equality of opportunity in the United States and one on combating Malaria in the developing world. (H/t Alanna Shaikh) We’ve read the full-length reports (available via email request to the Center) and we’re excited because: Their…