The GiveWell Blog

Could raising alcohol taxes save lives?

I’ve just posted a review on the effects of alcohol taxes on alcohol consumption—and on the lives that alcohol abuse can cost. This literature review is unusual in the degree to which it replicates the studies it examines, so I have called it a “replication review.” Data, code, and spreadsheets are here. The literature on…

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New deworming reanalyses and Cochrane review

On Wednesday, the International Journal of Epidemiology published two new reanalyses of Miguel and Kremer 2004, the most well-known randomized trial of deworming. Deworming is an intervention conducted by two of our top charities, so we’ve read the reanalyses and the simultaneously updated Cochrane review closely and are responding publicly. We still have a few…

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Key questions about philanthropy, part 3: Making and evaluating grants

This post is third in a series on fundamental (and under-discussed) questions about philanthropy that we’ve grappled with in starting a grantmaking organization (see previous link for the series intro, and this link for the second installment). This post covers the following questions: When making a grant, should we focus most on evaluating the strategy/intervention,…

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Change of leadership at Evidence Action

Evidence Action — which runs the Deworm the World Initiative, one of GiveWell’s top charities — announced today that Alix Zwane will be stepping down as Executive Director on August 3. She is leaving to join the Global Innovation Fund as CEO. Laliteswar Kumar, currently Director, Africa Region, will serve as Interim Executive Director. Dr….

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Geomagnetic storms: Using extreme value theory to gauge the risk

This is the third post in a series about geomagnetic storms as a global catastrophic risk. A paper covering the material in this series was just released. My last post examined the strength of certain major geomagnetic storms that occurred before the advent of the modern electrical grid, as well as a solar event in 2012 that could have caused…

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Key questions about philanthropy, part 2: Choosing focus areas and hiring program staff

This post is second in a series on fundamental questions about philanthropy that we’ve grappled with in starting a grantmaking organization (see link for the series intro). In this post, we discuss the following questions: Should a funder set explicit focus areas, and if so, how should they choose the focus areas? We believe it…

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