Seminar Schedule Archive (2017)
We host weekly seminars on research questions relevant to our mission. These seminars are open to fellow researchers interested in the field. If you are interested in coming to any of the seminars, please get in touch.
Week 1 - Friday 13th October 2017 - 1-2.30pm
Unbreakable: building the resilience of the poor in the face of natural disasters - Mook Bangalore (LSE)
Abstract:
Because natural disasters tighten poverty’s grip on communities worldwide, disaster risk reduction goes hand in hand with poverty reduction, and vice versa. A recent report that we wrote finds the impact of extreme weather on poverty is more devastating than previously understood, responsible for annual consumption losses of $520 billion and pushing 26 million people into poverty every year. Targeted resilience-building interventions protect poor people from adverse weather events and can help countries and communities save $100 billion a year.
Week 2 - Friday 20th October 2017 - 1-2 pm
Institutional decision making - Jess Whittlestone
Abstract:
Governments and other influential institutions often have to make extremely high-stakes decisions, depending on the judgement of a few key people. We know that human judgement and decision-making is prone to all kinds of errors and biases - but research is also beginning to suggest strategies to improve judgement - such as research on better forecasting methods. I'll discuss the potential for applying this research to improve the decisions made by crucial institutions, what questions new research in this area might focus on, and why opportunities in this space might be of particularly high impact right now.
Week 3 - Friday 27th October 2017 - 1-2 pm
Animal Ethics - Toby Ord
Abstract:
Improving the treatment of animals is potentially one of the biggest and most cost-effective causes in the world. Yet there are many crucial considerations that could completely change its value and/or the most effective ways to help with it. I’ll sketch out what I think are the most important questions facing a serious analysis of animal ethics.
Week 4 - Friday 3rd November 2017 - No Seminar
Week 5 - Friday 10th November 2017 - 1-2 pm
A new scale for utilitarianism - Lucius Caviola
Abstract:
In this project, we dissociated individual differences in the ‘negative’ (willingness to cause instrumental harm) and ‘positive’ (impartial concern about the greater good) dimensions of utilitarian thinking as manifested in the general population. We showed that these are two independent dimensions of proto-utilitarian tendencies in the lay population, each exhibiting a distinct psychological profile. Acknowledging this dissociation could generate fruitful insights for effective altruism.
Week 6 - Friday 17th November 2017 - 1-2 pm
Donor Coordination - Owen Cotton-Barratt
Abstract:
Given multiple actors deciding how to distribute resources (for example money, but also perhaps labour) for altruistic purposes, how will they, or should they, act? The puzzle is cleanest in the case where they have slightly different values leading them to value different opportunities differently – for example if two donors agree on the first-best use of money but disagree on the second-best, they each prefer that the other fully funds the first-best use. Variations of it deal with cases with multiple donors, or where there are also empirical disagreements, or private information, or comparative advantage of different actors contributing to different projects.
Week 7 - Friday 24th November 2017 - 1-2.30 pm
Egalitarianism under Ambiguity - Alex Voorhoeve (LSE), based on joint work with Thomas Rowe of Virginia Tech
Abstract:
Decision-makers are in an ambiguous situation when they are not in a position to assign precise probabilities to all of the relevant possible outcomes of their actions. Such situations are common—novel medical treatments and policies addressing climate change are two examples. Many people respond to ambiguous situations in a cautious, or ambiguity-averse manner, and there are good reasons for taking such ambiguity aversion to be permissible. We put forward an egalitarian view of distributive justice that incorporates ambiguity aversion. We analyse when the aims of reducing inequality and limiting ambiguity are congruent and when they conflict, and highlight a number of novel implications of the proposed view. We also demonstrate that ambiguity aversion renders a range of distributive views, from egalitarianism to utilitarianism, incompatible with the Pareto principle applied to ambiguous prospects. We argue that this strengthens the hand of egalitarians who wish to dispense with the Pareto principle applied to prospects. We also consider a range of real-world cases in which ambiguity aversion makes a difference to what one ought to do.
Week 8 - Friday 1st December 2017 - 1-2 pm
Power Ranges: Detecting Small and Diffuse Spillover Effects - Rossa O'Keeffe-O'Donovan (based on joint work with Natalie Quinn)
Abstract:
Many policy interventions may have small, indirect effects on 'non-treated' people, and in some cases these spillovers can be very diffuse. For example, GiveDirectly's cash transfer program might have a small positive effect on prices over large geographic areas, potentially harming many non-recipients. Traditional program evaluation techniques do not have the power to detect such small and diffuse effects. We explore alternative methods that increase our ability to estimate them.
Week 9 - Friday 8th December 2017 - 1-2.30 pm
Provisional title: Insights from the history of mass deworming - Sophie Hermanns (Cambridge)
Abstract:
In the late 1990s, an expert report from WHO expressed serious concern about mass deworming as an effective intervention against the parasitic disease schistosomiasis. Today, mass deworming is the primary tool countries and the international community use to fight the disease. The intervention is considered a “Best Buy” in international development by J-PAL, GiveWell recommends two deworming charities as highly cost-effective, pharmaceutical company Merck has donated 500 million tablets and almost 90 million people received treatment in 2016. This paper traces the political and moral paradigm shifts and the role new agents and new technologies played in making this dramatic change possible. I argue that the history of mass deworming offers insights into broader changes in international development, global health and philanthropy.