DR

david_reinstein

Founder and Co-Director @ The Unjournal
3944 karmaJoined Working (15+ years)Monson, MA, USA

Bio

See davidreinstein.org

I'm the Founder and Co-director of The Unjournal;. W  organize and fund public journal-independent feedback, rating, and evaluation of hosted papers and dynamically-presented research projects. We will focus on work that is highly relevant to global priorities (especially in economics, social science, and impact evaluation). We will encourage better research by making it easier for researchers to get feedback and credible ratings on their work.


Previously I was a Senior Economist at Rethink Priorities, and before that n Economics lecturer/professor for 15 years.

I'm  working to impact EA fundraising and marketing; see https://bit.ly/eamtt

And projects bridging EA, academia, and open science.. see bit.ly/eaprojects

My previous and ongoing research focuses on determinants and motivators of charitable giving (propensity, amounts, and 'to which cause?'), and drivers of/barriers to effective giving, as well as the impact of pro-social behavior and social preferences on market contexts.

Podcasts: "Found in the Struce" https://anchor.fm/david-reinstein

and the EA Forum podcast: https://anchor.fm/ea-forum-podcast (co-founder, regular reader)

Twitter: @givingtools

Posts
60

Sorted by New

Sequences
1

Unjournal: Pivotal Questions/Claims project

Comments
831

Topic contributions
9

Project Idea: 'Cost to save a life' interactive calculator promotion


What about making and promoting a ‘how much does it cost to save a life’ quiz and calculator.

 This could be adjustable/customizable (in my country, around the world, of an infant/child/adult, counting ‘value added life years’ etc.) … and trying to make it go viral (or at least bacterial) as in the ‘how rich am I’ calculator? 


The case 

  1. People might really be interested in this… it’s super-compelling (a bit click-baity, maybe, but the payoff is not click bait)!
  2. May make some news headlines too (it’s an “easy story” for media people, asks a question people can engage with, etc. … ’how much does it cost to save a life? find out after the break!)
  3. if people do think it’s much cheaper than it is, as some studies suggest, it would probably be good to change this conception… to help us build a reality-based impact-based evidence-based community and society of donors
  4. similarly, it could get people thinking about ‘how to really measure impact’ --> consider EA-aligned evaluations more seriously

While GiveWell has a page with a lot of tech details, but it’s not compelling or interactive  in the way I suggest above, and I doubt  they market it heavily.

GWWC probably doesn't have the design/engineering time for this (not to mention refining this for accuracy and communication).  But if someone else (UX design, research support, IT) could do the legwork I think they might be very happy to host it. 

It could also mesh well with academic-linked research so I may have  some ‘Meta academic support ads’ funds that could work with this.
 

Tags/backlinks (~testing out this new feature) 
@GiveWell  @Giving What We Can
Projects I'd like to see 

EA Projects I'd Like to See 
 Idea: Curated database of quick-win tangible, attributable projects 

I proposed something related to this, trying to get around some of the issues you mention above. Essentially, a way to have your employer re-purpose some of your salary towards an external charity. 

 

By the way, you wrote "we also plan to hire external experts to red-team our analysis and check for relevant flaws post-publication." 

Did you ever implement that? 

Fwiw these human-narrated episodes (of older posts, some still relevant, I think) can be found at

The earlier Spotify EA Forum podcast link

And also some on my earlier podcast "Found in The Struce"

Quick update: we've received some funding to move forward with this on a trial basis. We're likely to focus on only a few organizations and pivotal questions/claims (maybe 2-3 of each; perhaps one in each of three cause areas GH&D, Animal Welfare, innovation or GCR). 

I think the key cruxes are

1. Will very high-impact organizations engage and respond to our reports? (Some good signs already)
2. Will the highest-value pivotal questions actually be informed by formal research that is in our scope for evaluation?

 

I'll add this to the papers The Unjournal is considering evaluating. It seems potentially high-value and influential. Please let us know if there is a more recent version than the one linked here.

Good but I don’t quite see the logic of “ it has been such a pleasure working with you that I feel the need to give back to the less fortunate”. How does one follow from the other?

Load more