Alex Cohen

Each year, GiveWell makes hundreds of millions of dollars in grants aimed at saving and improving lives globally. My team's job is to look for ways we could be wrong and make our research better. Here's what we've been up to and what's next 🧵

This series of papers evaluating cash transfers in the US has produced disappointing results for advocates. These are important results. However, when reading them it’s worth keeping in mind that cash transfer studies have produced very positive results in lower income countries.

This is already unlocking new ways to design syphilis vaccines (currently there aren’t any)! By wrapping the proteins like this & making them soluble, you can run more experiments with different antigens from the bug, to see which might work. (Proud to support at @open_phil)

Also spotted Ramsay Shoes in the airport. I visited them in Addis back in grad school - they were debating vertical integration, supporting small producers, and aiming to break into international markets. Looks like they’re doing well!

How much does it cost to provide a healthy diet? How does this vary across countries? worldbank.org/en/programs/ic… Will Masters shares an open-access resource that seeks to compare across countries at #ABCDE2025.

Reviewing hierarchical multiple testing methods that improve power and interpretability by accounting for logical links among hypotheses, beyond standard Bonferroni-type correction, from Sebastian Calónico and @SFGaliani nber.org/papers/w34050

🎙️ New episode of Allegedly Does Not Replicate is out! This time, we talk with Adam Salisbury from @GiveWell about funders, transparency, and… ghost data. A thread 🧵👇

In this program in Rajasthan, adding a community health officer added a year of healthy life for ~$15K patrickagte.github.io/patrickagte/ag…

As development experts we have pushed nonexperts away, saying it was too complicated for regular people to understand. That is not good for building support. Radically simplifying would help us communicate better and make for more effective aid.

🎧 Listen to our latest update on malaria funding: bit.ly/3GWz7LX GiveWell has recommended >$1B to malaria programs, averting an estimated 200,000+ deaths. Now, major anticipated funding reductions threaten to create substantial gaps in life-saving malaria programs.🧵

What other topics would you like to see debated in the Rootclaim style, with a long format judged debate? (either by me or by other people)

Because it collects data on core demographic metrics, its data also feeds into many other important estimates. Below, I've listed some topics we cover at Our World in Data where the Demographic and Health Surveys were a key data source for global estimates: a lot of them.

In February, the US government ended some of the most important survey programs globally, used in research & policy for lower- and middle-income countries. In a new article, I explain why the Demographic and Health Surveys were so critical and why they should be rescued. /1

Seems like you read a lot about DRC's cobalt relative to its copper given their respective significance to the Congolese economy.

We often now hear the term “Bayesian borrowing” in trials. But what is Bayesian borrowing and what are the pros and cons around its use? 1/6 #MethodologyMonday #122

I'm very proud to have won the Royal Statistical Society's award for best statistical commentary by a non-journalist this year 🥹 The award was for my piece "The rise in reported US maternal mortality rates is largely due to a change in measurement", which looked at the impact…

In fact, involuntary hospitalization nearly doubles the likelihood that patients will be charged with a violent crime and that they will die by suicide or drug overdose in the 3 months afterward for those who would be hospitalized by one physician, but not another.

Recruiting an RA in Kenya at the Busara Center for two exciting projects in urban labour markets. Keen to get Kenyan applicants but expats also possible. Econometric and coding skills and team management skills are major requirements jobs.lever.co/BusaraCenter/d…. @econ_ra @JPAL

Really enjoyed the chance to meet with the team at IDRC - one of the firms that does post distribution monitoring of AMF net campaigns in Uganda. Excited to head out this morning to shadow enumerators and see this monitoring in action.