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All behavioral studies aside, in the long run matching doesn't seem like a reasonable approach. The only money you have to donate is your own. If individual A

All behavioral studies aside, in the long run matching doesn't seem like a reasonable approach. The only money you have to donate is your own. If individual A offers to match my donations, I could reason that A will probably donate less to charity in proportion to how much of A's matching funds are used up. That is, in the long run, whether I take up A's offer won't affect the total amount A spends on charity. So it shouldn't affect my decision either. As an aside, I think people don't fully consider the effectiveness of earning more money as a form of altruism. Since around 30% will be taken by the government, and used to fund various social services, the choice to earn more money is really the choice to earn money and donate 30%.

dantheman 11y ago
If you take that approach, then you need to weigh the good and bad that the government does and how it does it's allocation. If it has more money will it go to war more? If it has less money will it cut social programs or cut down on military adventurism? If it has more money will it be directed to special interests since social programs are already funded at a good level -- does more money enable corruption? I agree with you about earning more money being for altruism; I think it's better to work a week and donate the money than do something you aren't skilled at. e.g. building houses when you can program and pay for 3 skilled builders - more gets done and at a better quality.
benkuhn 11y ago
> As an aside, I think people don't fully consider the effectiveness of earning more money as a form of altruism. Since around 30% will be taken by the government, and used to fund various social services, the choice to earn more money is really the choice to earn money and donate 30%. I'm super sympathetic to this idea, but I think generally there are even more effective places to donate extra earnings than the government! For one thing, a lot of government programs aren't very efficient for various political reasons. For another, even the worst-off people in the US are largely better off than the people that you could help by giving to organizations that work abroad. (Personally, I'm a fan of GiveWell's[1] approach to finding the most effective places to give.) But I agree that trying to earn money in order to fund this sort of thing is an under-appreciated idea, and in fact exactly what I'm trying to do :) [1]:http://www.givewell.org/ http://www.givewell.org/

dantheman 11y ago

If you take that approach, then you need to weigh the good and bad that the government does and how it does it's allocation. If it has more money will it go to war more? If it has less money will it cut social programs or cut down on military adventurism? If it has more money will it be directed to special interests since social programs are already funded at a good level -- does more money enable corruption? I agree with you about earning more money being for altruism; I think it's better to work a week and donate the money than do something you aren't skilled at. e.g. building houses when you can program and pay for 3 skilled builders - more gets done and at a better quality.

benkuhn 11y ago

> As an aside, I think people don't fully consider the effectiveness of earning more money as a form of altruism. Since around 30% will be taken by the government, and used to fund various social services, the choice to earn more money is really the choice to earn money and donate 30%. I'm super sympathetic to this idea, but I think generally there are even more effective places to donate extra earnings than the government! For one thing, a lot of government programs aren't very efficient for various political reasons. For another, even the worst-off people in the US are largely better off than the people that you could help by giving to organizations that work abroad. (Personally, I'm a fan of GiveWell's[1] approach to finding the most effective places to give.) But I agree that trying to earn money in order to fund this sort of thing is an under-appreciated idea, and in fact exactly what I'm trying to do :) [1]:http://www.givewell.org/ http://www.givewell.org/