The Impact of Cash Transfers on Effective Altruism

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There's a billion people living in households worldwide that are enrolled in some kind of cash transfer program. I was very much of the mind that kind of supporting research and the design of cash transfer programs would be a very high returns thing. Of course now effective altruism is no longer seen as generally sort of like the benchmark to beat so some people might be talking about buy if X cash transfers, right? That's one that's very realistic for lots of agency type interventions to hit.

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Can giving people a sense of agency and dignity be better than giving them access to food, shelter, clothing, or cash? And what exactly can be done in practice to expand human agency? How does the value of agency-oriented interventions compare to the value of more tangible interventions? How robust are the findings about all of the above in light of the replication crisis? In general, how much confidence should we place (with or without the replication crisis) in the findings of social science research? How tight should the feedback loop be for organizations that do both research for and implementation of charitable interventions?

Richard Sedlmayr works with a private foundation called the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, where he funds research and innovation to promote pro-poor economic development. He is also involved in the setup of The Agency Fund, a philanthropic partnership investing in ideas and organizations that support people in the navigation of difficult lives. Richard's background is in behavioral, development, and financial economics, and he has a PhD in Public Policy from Oxford. Richard has lived in a dozen countries and is currently based in the Bay Area. You can get in touch with him on LinkedIn.

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