Over the last few days I have been wondering just how severe and how fixable developing-world malnutrition may be. For a striking illustration, see “Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old Age Pension and Intra-household Allocation in South Africa” by Esther Duflo. This paper analyzes a survey of 9000 families in the early 1990s in South Africa, when…
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All posts by Holden
Research plan: A fresh start
We completed our first year of research a few weeks ago, and are now starting up our second. (Our annual review and plan discuss what we’ve learned from our first year, and the many ways in which we’re changing our approach for year 2.) We found some strong organizations the first time around, but our…
The GiveWell Pledge
The goal of GiveWell is to help a large chunk of individual giving to become more effective (i.e., to help people more). As such, the two most important questions about our project are: 1. Can we produce useful, actionable research for donors? 2. Will donors use it? Our first year was focused on #1. We…
New material
We’ve been releasing a lot of new material over the last few weeks, and I want to make sure that our blog readers are aware of it. GiveWell.net now includes: New research reports and charity recommendations on three causes. Global Poverty: includes a thorough review of the logical and empirical case for microfinance. We have…
Career Academies: An unconventional approach to education
The Career Academies initiative recently released a report on academies’ impact on students eight years after graduation. I’m fascinated by this report and this initiative because: The Career Academies initiative rejects conventional wisdom about education. For much of my life I’ve assumed that learning math, reading, and other “liberal arts” related skills is the key…
Some qualitative information on microfinance
I came across an interesting article on microfinance by Tyler Cowen. Like us, Cowen is skeptical about the common anecdotes focusing on the “entrepreneurial” aspect of microfinance: For better or worse, microborrowing often entails a kind of bait and switch. The borrower claims that the money is for a business, but uses it for other…