Would it be better for

• $100 to go to someone living on $300 a year or
• $200 to go to someone earning $500 per year?

This is a really tough choice, but one organizations like GiveDirectly need to think about.   How can we consider it? 

I read and discuss Toby Ord's EA Forum post and linked CEA article. And I interject, explain, and comment. A lot.

(By the way, I leave some hypothes.is comments on the latter page, if you want to engage.)

This ties into longstanding a major theoretical and empirical questions in Economics (Welfare economics, Public Choice, Development, Risk preference elicitation, Happiness). But I think it's thorny unresolved. 

But practical choices must be made that rely crucially on how we value (e.g.) the above A versus B. And I really don't know how major orgs (like the World Bank, the UN, USAID, DFiD, WHO, Gates Foundation) and think tanks/research groups (like JPAL, IPA, CGDEV) consider these tradeoffs.

Get in touch (or leave a message on Anchor) if you want to add to this conversation, or have some suggested references and redings.