The Costs of Information and Education in Different Environments

If I told you it’s possible to deliver an extra year of ideal primary-level education for 30 cents, would you believe me? Hopefully not – the claim is absurd on its face.

But it may be true nonetheless. The very best education interventions are phenomenally cost-effective, but they’re not the kinds of things you’d expect, says Dr Rachel Glennerster — who we chose to introduce the problem of global poverty. 

This episode first broadcast on the regular 80,000 Hours Podcast feed on December 20, 2018. Some related episodes include:

• #13 – Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results
• #18 – Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty & the spurious action-inaction distinction
• #22 – Dr Leah Utyasheva on the non-profit that figured out how to massively cut suicide rates
• #30 – Dr Eva Vivalt on how little social science findings generalize from one study to another
• #37 – GiveWell picks top charities by estimating the unknowable. James Snowden on how they do it.
• #38 – Prof Yew-Kwang Ng on anticipating EA decades ago & how to make a much happier world
• And #55 – Mark Lutter & Tamara Winter on founding charter cities with outstanding governance to end poverty

Series produced by Keiran Harris.