tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-189354452024-03-14T07:52:10.725-04:00*Reflective Disequilibrium*Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-80851385802407802752020-10-15T12:19:00.016-04:002021-08-09T11:21:26.605-04:00Envisioning a world immune to global catastrophic biological risks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the continuing vulnerability of our civilization to serious harm from novel diseases, but it has also highlighted that our civilization's wealth and technology offer unprecedented ability to contain pandemics. Logical extrapolation of DNA/RNA sequencing technology, physical barriers and sterilization, and robotics point the way to a world in which any new natural pandemic or use of biological weapons can be immediately contained, at increasingly affordable prices. These measures are agnostic as to the nature of pathogens, low in dual use issues, and can be fully established in advance, and so would seem to mark an end to any risk period for global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs). An attainable defense-dominant 'win condition' for GCBRs means that we should think about GCBRs more in terms of a possible 'time of perils' and not an indefinite risk that sets a short life expectancy for our civilization.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><span></span><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2020/05/what-would-civilization-immune-to.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-16706619621859582642020-10-15T12:19:00.013-04:002020-10-17T13:23:47.849-04:00What do historical statistics teach us about the accidental release of pandemic bioweapons?<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Historically research on dangerous pathogens, for biodefense and bioweapons, has resulted in disturbingly frequent accidental infections of workers and sometimes escaping to the outside world. Straightforward extrapolation of those accident rates suggests that large scale illegal programs working with bioweapons capable of posing global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs) would be released into the world within a few decades. However, if accidental release rates were so high, then why haven't there historically been more pandemics stemming from such releases? Examining the known biological weapons programs, especially the Soviet program (by far the largest), we see that they were overwhelmingly working with diseases that were not capable of pandemic spread, with the few exceptions (particularly smallpox) subject to vaccination or having low fatality rates. This should be expected: clearly the human population could not sustain many high fatality pandemic pathogens naturally circulating. However, it appears that the Soviet program was engaged in active research to produce deadly pandemic pathogens, although it failed to do so with 1980s biotechnology. If a future illegal bioweapons program were follow the Soviet example but succeed with more advanced biotechnology, historical rates of accidental release could pose a more likely threat than intentional use of the pandemic agents in warfare. </span></p><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-do-historical-statistics-teach-us.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-50645677538950541092020-05-31T15:27:00.001-04:002023-03-08T13:09:56.274-05:00Experience curves, large populations, and the long run<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If our civilization avoids catastrophe, will we generally be able to advance technology to close to physical limits, match or exceed observed biological abilities, and colonize the universe? Or will we be stuck in a permanent technological plateau before that, reaching a state where resources are insufficient to make the breakthroughs to acquire resources and continue progress? Experience curves, which forecast cost improvements in technology as a function of cumulative production, are a popular tool for technological forecasting and perform relatively well compared to other statistical approaches, although they inevitably have significant and increasing error as one extrapolates further. If we consider the maximum energy resources and population of the Earth, combined with the potential lifetime of human civilization (absent existential catastrophe), experience curves extrapolate to immense technological improvements (constrained by physical limits), more than sufficient to colonize the rest of the solar system, which in turn yields a billionfold increase in potential scale to fund interstellar colonization. Such extrapolation would suggest matching or exceeding biological capacities we currently lack, such as the computational efficiency of brain tissue, or the rapid energy payback of algae as solar energy and manufacturing devices.<br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2020/05/experience-curves-large-populations-and.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-54752265773714140292020-05-28T14:19:00.004-04:002020-06-03T22:36:39.544-04:00Terrestrial solar energy could eventually support extremely large economies and populations<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If we are interested in whether Earth's civilization could ever reach various technological milestones, or long run economic output and populations that Earth could sustain, the terrestrial solar energy resource can provide helpful information. Using efficiencies of the best lab solar cells, covering the earth with solar panel platforms could provide a thousand times as much energy as our civilization currently uses, and more than a hundred times the production of the terrestrial biosphere. Historical experience curve and cost data suggest this energy supply could be much cheaper than current energy prices, although with increasing overhead costs as less desirable areas such as ocean platforms and less sunny lands are used. Energy payback times are already under a year for energy-efficient solar in good locations, and have been falling along with prices, so solar energy can power its own construction, and with advanced robotics and AI might eventually grow at extremely rapid rates. <br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2020/05/terrestrial-solar-energy-could.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-4940565104137191312020-05-23T18:17:00.005-04:002020-05-28T13:43:15.090-04:00The High Frontier, space based solar power, and space manufacturing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space">The High Frontier</a>, published in 1976 by Gerard K O'Neill, lays out a vision of economically profitable space colonization in artificial orbital habitats, and guessed (while disclaiming it as prediction) that it was "unlikely" that a space community would not be established in 30 years. I was interested in why those forecasts were made, and why they turned out wrong, as data points for thinking about forecasting future technological developments. The book lays out a case that in the long run space habitats can support immensely larger populations and wealth than the planets in the Solar System. In the medium term it argued that a government program to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build space factories and Lunar mining facilities would eventually let them produce solar power a few times more efficiently than terrestrial solar power production, and that this would drive space colonization. This seems to have been doomed for multiple reasons, radically underestimating launch costs and likely fatally underestimating the increased costs of space production (to be paid for out of a 2-3x improvement in solar radiation), as well as requiring immense government funding. As a means to improve solar power cost-effectiveness, it would have been far inferior to solar cell R&D. Subsequent orders-of-magnitude improvement in launch costs per kW of solar cells make space-based solar more plausible than at the time, but the challenge of competing with terrestrial solar and especially terrestrial scale economies of industry remains high.<br>
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</div></div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2020/05/book-review-high-frontier-space-based.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-85913631066920170062019-11-30T00:50:00.002-05:002019-11-30T15:27:33.811-05:00Person-affecting views may be dominated by possibilities of large future populations of necessary people<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On symmetric person-affecting views (PAV), in choosing between actions only necessary people, those who will exist regardless of our immediate choice, count while those whose existence is contingent on our choices are ignored. Chaotic 'butterfly effects' mean that almost any terrestrial action will shortly scramble the genetic makeup and identities of future terrestrial births. Thus philosopher Michael Plant <a href="http://www.plantinghappiness.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/M-Plant-Doing-Good-Badly.pdf">invokes</a> symmetric PAV to say that '[o]n this, roughly speaking, the well-being of future entities, human or non-human, does not count" and to argue in favor of a focus on short-run impacts on long-lived existing creatures (humans and dogs, but not chickens or ants) rather than long-run consequences of altruistic interventions, since vast future populations would be composed of contingent rather than necessary people. However, the empirical underpinnings of this move are questionable: there are reasonable possibilities on which astronomically large populations of necessary people will exist, and credence in such possibilities will mean that they account for the bulk of expected impact on necessary people. I raise three such possibilities: technological life extension, contact with distant aliens, and fission cases.</span><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2019/11/person-affecting-views-may-be-dominated.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-5885568924565900502018-10-20T20:30:00.001-04:002018-10-21T19:59:07.589-04:00Financial returns of interstellar colonization for the sedentary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: In thinking about the likelihood of interstellar colonization by our civilization, or possible alien civilizations, one question is motivation: how strong are the incentives to do so? If moderately fast self-replicating probes can build infrastructure in a new solar system and send back information or material goods requiring extensive experimentation or computation to produce, then even at current market interest rates a colonization mission could deliver extremely high return on investment. For patient long-lived decision-makers with strong property rights or stability, returns could be overwhelming.</i><br>
</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2018/10/financial-returns-of-interstellar.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-40938424298666207282018-10-19T18:27:00.001-04:002018-10-22T13:49:23.052-04:00Flow-through effects of innovation through the ages<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Per the previous <a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2018/10/flow-through-effects-of-saving-life.html">post</a>, it appears that growth impacts of saving lives have historically dwarfed the immediate effects, by increasing technological innovation that eventually led to the rich and populous modern world. Active work on technological innovation contributes more to technology than the average of all activity in society, and so might be expected to have larger growth effects. Moreover, in ancient times not only did society have smaller population and output, it also invested much less of those resources into R&D. The greater neglectedness raised the marginal impact of ancient R&D enormously, so that past altruists who contributed to innovation could have had multiple orders of magnitude more impact on long-run living standards and years of life lived than those who saved lives or provided direct aid. The strength of this preference increases enormously as we consider earlier periods in history.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2018/10/flow-through-effects-of-innovation.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-33271265735334047602018-10-17T21:49:00.002-04:002018-10-22T13:49:30.442-04:00Flow-through effects of saving a life through the ages on life-years lived<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Historically, human populations were much smaller, and humans have long contributed to a process of technological accumulation that lead to current enormous human populations. Thus, saving a drowning child 10,000 years ago would have, by increasing economic output and technological advance, lead to hundreds of additional human lives by today, and potentially far more in the future. Because past populations were smaller by a greater factor than they were poorer, the ancients' opportunities to bring about QALYs may be much greater and closer to those of moderns than is sometimes thought, at least within the field of local direct life-saving. </i><i>Impacts were also enormously greater in comparatively non-Malthusian periods, when a saved life could compound at high local population growth rates.</i><i> In some ways, this is a historical analog to Nick Bostrom's 'Astronomical Waste' argument, showing that the basic logic of longtermism has held in the past in at least some domains. However, expediting growth is a relatively easy change to transmit over long periods, whereas trajectory changes that attempt to shape the character or actions of society at future technology levels (rather than when they are reached) face the problem of decaying influence.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2018/10/flow-through-effects-of-saving-life.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-18075060389967877122016-08-17T21:17:00.001-04:002016-08-22T21:34:01.966-04:00Annual 'splitting' of funding gaps can be partial funging when gaps carry over across years<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>In a 2015 blog post, the Open Philanthropy Project contrasted several strategies for coordinating Good Ventures' donations with those of smaller donors. One was 'splitting,' in which a large donor commits to funding only a fixed percentage of a funding gap (between two thresholds of efficacy) in a given year. The advantage of this is said to be that a $1 marginal donation by a small donor will increase funding to the recipient charity by $1, in contrast to 'funging' where the large donor reduces its donation in response to the small donor, so that funding to the recipient charity increases by substantially less than $1. However, this distinction does not hold when funding gaps can substantially carry over from year to year. In the limit of perfect carryover, funging of small donors could approach 100%. With substantial stochastic carryover funging could be likewise substantial, while 'one-time' opportunities may suffer minimal funging. I suggest that some accounting for carryover across periods must accompany 'splitting' to avoid donor illusion.</i><br>
</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2016/08/annual-splitting-of-funding-gaps-can-be.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-81551959785858011662016-03-27T00:17:00.002-04:002016-03-27T00:32:58.648-04:00Creating a donor-advised fund lottery<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: In a previous post I discussed the construction of charity lotteries, which let donors who think that the effectiveness of their donations has increasing returns to scale convert small donations into a small chance of donations large enough to exploit scale economies. However, transaction and coordination costs pose a barrier to individual users: there are scale economies to setting up charity lotteries. Effective altruists looking for projects could set up a charity lottery with low transaction costs using a donor-advised fund to provide easy access to small donors.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2016/03/creating-donor-advised-fund-lottery.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-50477806445358763922015-12-25T01:03:00.001-05:002015-12-26T13:40:36.167-05:00The age distribution of GiveWell recommended charities<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: GiveWell's list of top and standout charities is identical to that of 2014, although with special emphasis on the Against Malaria Foundation. Giving What We Can's recommendations have been static for several years. To estimate what rate of churn we should expect, I examine the age distribution of GiveWell (and Giving What We Can) recommended charities. For top international aid charities, typical age is a decade or less, possibly a result of focus on smaller organizations narrowly focused on interventions with recent funding gaps. </i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-age-distribution-of-givewell.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-69250076662259981932015-11-05T21:57:00.001-05:002016-10-24T23:02:56.398-04:00Various functional forms for brain-weighting wild insects and farmed land animals favor the former<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Some people have offered guesses or intuitions that when comparing animals with very different nervous system scales, they should be weighted by the logarithm or square root of neural capacity, while also taking the view that the impacts of animal agriculture on wild insects are not much greater than the impacts on farmed land animals. Considering these functional forms, and linear weighting with number of neurons, it appears they assign a much greater total weight to wild insect populations affected by agricultural land use than to the land animals being farmed. This suggests a revision of some combination of the weighting schemes and evaluations of agricultural impacts.</i><br>
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</div></div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2015/11/various-functional-forms-for-brain.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-48884678371314135292015-11-04T01:40:00.000-05:002015-12-27T03:52:31.227-05:00Some considerations for prioritization within animal agriculture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Conflicting rationales have been offered to prioritize reduction of particular sectors of factory farming and animal agriculture, and I review a selection of these. Cattle make the largest contribution to climate change, and cattle raised for meat create the greatest demand for agricultural land use. Smaller chickens and farmed fish are much more numerous. Taking still more numerous wild animals into account would suggest that cattle farming has the largest impact, positive or negative. Taking neural capacity into account favors attention to large farmed animals, but this measure is still dominated by wild animals. Mental abilities such as learning and social intelligence do not seem to have strong implications between chickens and cattle. An alternative perspective is that focus should be on changes in human attitudes, efforts, and organizations, as these contribute to further change.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2015/11/some-considerations-for-prioritization.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-80570581520905904762015-11-01T01:21:00.000-04:002015-11-02T12:52:41.304-05:00Trends in farmed animal life-years per kg and per human in the United States<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Selective breeding, drugs, and altered diets have greatly increased the quantity of milk, meat, and eggs produced per year of farmed animal life for multiple species, creating side effects that lowered the quality of life of farmed animals, and increasing consumption through lower prices. In the United States it appears that for some agricultural industries productivity increases since 1950 might have reduced farmed animal-years enough to outweigh the effect of falling prices. These include dairy, beef, and eggs. However, total animal-years of chickens raised for meat, the most populous farmed land animal, increased dramatically in total and per capita, despite a severalfold reduction in chicken-years per kg of meat sold. Increases in production efficiency may reduce demand for farmed animal-years in some mature developed country markets, while increasing demand in larger emerging markets. Further analysis using detailed income and price elasticity information, as well as welfare effects of overbreeding, could estimate net effects of technological change on animal welfare.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2015/11/trends-in-farmed-animal-life-years-per.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-63972869873133689252014-12-29T14:26:00.000-05:002014-12-29T16:33:40.932-05:00Discussing Giving Season 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>It's giving season in the American tax year. As in previous years, some people in the effective altruism movement have been asking to talk about their giving decisions with me, and I would like to extend the offer of a sounding board to the readers of this blog. You can contact me by email, facebook, or by leaving a comment below with contact information (comments with contact info will be kept in moderation and not published).</i></div>
Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-2855701426003332562014-09-03T23:51:00.000-04:002015-11-26T00:26:14.448-05:00Second generation human capital benefits of migration<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Summary: One important element in estimating the benefits of liberalized migration is the effect on the human capital of migrants' children. Taking human capital benefits of childhood in a developed country into account increases estimates of overall benefits, and may favor permanent migration relative to temporary guest worker programs. I discuss human capital benefits in health, language competence, educational attainment, gender equality, and attachment to location. Benefits are largest and important for immigrants with initially low human capital. Some but not all of these benefits can be attained using retained earnings of temporary migrant workers to help their children at home.</i></div>
</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/09/second-generation-human-capital.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-32812639429600056682014-08-21T22:34:00.000-04:002014-08-26T15:42:14.757-04:00Population ethics and inaccessible populations<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: On some views in population ethics, including diminishing marginal value and average views, the value of producing future generations depends on the quantity of beings and welfare in times and places beyond our causal reach. Within these viewpoints large future populations do not automatically have overwhelming moral importance. However, if there are large inaccessible populations, then perspectives like these will-like total utilitarianism and its kin-also place overwhelming weight on the interests of large future populations. Past generations of hominids, and especially of non-human animals, greatly outnumber the current generation, and provide such an inaccessible population. Life elsewhere in the universe might do so as well. Such populations, in addition to changing the recommendations within these theories, may or may not reduce the weight given to the theories in deliberation.</i><br>
</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/08/population-ethics-and-inaccessible.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-73851003612656487132014-06-05T01:27:00.000-04:002014-06-18T14:12:14.793-04:00Increasing and improving saving as a philanthropic cause<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: While labor's share of world GDP is over one half, capital's share is close to one third. When considering altruistic interventions to increase economic output, as in GiveWell Labs' exploration of U.S. policy, efforts to increase saving and investment should be considered alongside efforts to improve effective labor supply. Compulsory savings schemes and government savings schemes have been used in other developed countries to induce savings far above U.S. levels, and global adoption of such schemes could produce annual gains of many trillions of dollars, although the potential gains are substantially less than the potential gains of labor mobility. Regulatory changes to default pension/investment contributions might also capture important, albeit smaller, gains.</i><br>
</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/06/increasing-and-improving-saving-as.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-69025384361435953652014-05-27T16:12:00.003-04:002016-12-01T01:34:22.437-05:00How migration liberalization might eliminate most absolute poverty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: While some estimates that open borders would double gross world product implicitly project the migration of most of the developed country labor force, a much smaller quantity of migration might cut global poverty rates by half or better. The additional income to the poorest required to bring them above extreme poverty lines is in the hundreds of billions of dollars per annum, while doubling world product would approach a hundred trillion dollars of additional annual output. Legal barriers to migration, and blocked desire to migrate, are most extreme for the poorest countries, suggesting extra migrants from those sources. While migrants may receive more income gains than are needed to escape absolute poverty remittances to family, trade, and investment may help to distribute the gains more widely. Overall, the case that migration liberalization for less skilled workers could eliminate most absolute poverty is significantly more robust than the most extreme estimates of global output gains.</i><br>
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</div></div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-migration-liberalization-might.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-56839781566237977852014-05-14T17:04:00.003-04:002018-06-27T20:07:58.654-04:00What does migration to the United Arab Emirates tell us about labor mobility?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Some notes on migration to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As in some other Gulf oil states, e.g. Qatar, almost the entire UAE private sector workforce is composed of foreign guest workers. The ratio of foreign workers to natives is high enough that if achieved by all developed countries it could absorb the labor force of the developing countries. The distribution is dominated by less skilled workers and workers from poor countries, who enjoy much higher wages than at home, but much lower than in countries such as the United States. Emirati tolerance of extremely high immigration may be related to the almost complete insulation of Emirati nationals private labor markets, and the exclusion of migrants from citizenship and access to government revenues. In Dubai, the native population primarily subsists on taxes on the foreign-dominated private sector, enjoying an extremely prosperous standard of living. The UAE shows that truly massive guest worker programs can greatly benefit migrants and natives when politically feasible, and could eventually eliminate most global poverty if broadly imitated. </i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/05/what-does-migration-to-united-arab.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-5239995375669076532014-05-07T16:06:00.003-04:002014-05-18T02:21:40.476-04:00Migration levies and unskilled labor mobility in Singapore<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Several advocates of increased labor mobility have suggested taxes on migrants to compensate natives of destination countries for any inconveniences and to increase the reward of accepting more migrants, as a theoretical matter. In practice Singapore already accepts an exceptionally large number of unskilled and less skilled temporary workers, taxes them heavily, and uses the extensive net revenue to make a significant contribution to the public accounts. It appears that Singapore captures most of the economic surplus of migration, although migrants also benefit significantly. However, the system produces great local inequality and has a number of other problems that may outweigh fiscal benefits in its political appeal. While Singaporean migration policy seems much better than most developed countries', it is not first-best from a humanitarian point of view, and the model's value in promoting labor mobility elsewhere is uncertain, although intriguing.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/05/migration-levies-and-unskilled-labor.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-971655827470939862014-05-05T19:15:00.002-04:002015-06-07T00:27:23.513-04:00What do null fields tell us about fraud risk?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: Efforts to improve scientific integrity must grapple with both questionable research practices that fall within the current "rules of the game" and outright misconduct. Survey and audit data suggest disturbing lower bounds for misconduct, and suggest the possibility of rates high enough to meaningfully distort readings of the scientific literature. The problem could be worse for "null fields" studying nonexistent effects, and for studies that seemingly have top methodological standards. I discuss this analysis in the context of cold fusion and parapsychology, commonly thought to be null fields. These fields may be more at risk of fraud than others, but may also provide a warning about the potential for misconduct in more conventional domains.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/05/what-do-null-fields-tell-us-about-fraud.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-12530536387000798692014-03-13T21:24:00.001-04:002014-06-05T01:41:17.485-04:00Tech and finance in the Forbes 2013 billionaire list<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Summary: A rough breakdown of the 2013 Forbes billionaire list members classified to the technology and finance sectors, in terms of numbers, total wealth, and age. While finance-related billionaires outnumber tech billionaires substantially, the advantage is much less in terms of total wealth. Tech is better represented among American and especially among younger billionaires. Many disclaimers apply, and data on these extremes should not be given excessive weight in evaluating the expected financial returns of careers, which are primarily driven by much less extreme outcomes, and must be adjusted for human capital and population.</i></div>
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</div></div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/03/tech-and-finance-in-forbes-2013.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18935445.post-69808032578613917902014-03-11T01:22:00.000-04:002014-03-12T23:02:36.375-04:00GiveDirectly, happiness, and log income<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Summary: A juxtaposition of the work of economist Justin Wolfers and colleagues on the relationship between reported subjective well-being and income, and the Haushofer and Shapiro (2013) RCT estimates of well-being impacts for GiveDirectly.</i><br>
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</div><a href="https://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2014/03/givedirectly-happiness-and-log-income.html#more">Read more »</a>Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com6