This question resolves positively if GiveWell gives a grant or publishes a recommendation that grants be given to fund Eyeglasses to improve workers' manual dexterity on or before December 31, 2026. Or if a charity undertaking the same work is designated a "Top Charity" or a recipient of "All Funds" before the deadline. This resolves according to a statement from GiveWell or a credible news organisation.
It resolves "No" otherwise.
The most likely resolution mechanism is that GiveWell writes "yes" in the column "Have we recommended one or more grants to support this program?" in the “Eyeglasses to improve workers' manual dexterity” row of the GiveWell program reviews spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TG7WRU85p1SEjir-5qvIEg4kVG9a4Lnzdgwcub8aKSs/edit#gid=0) or a spreadsheet that supersedes it.
N.B. Eyeglasses can be distributed for the purpose of improving manual dexterity or other purposes. The funds must go towards the distribution of eyeglasses for the purpose of improving workers' manual dexterity, not a charity that largely does other work.
-- Note --
Can you find issues with this question. I will reward good comments with mana.
-- Background --
GiveWell has recommended grants to over 10 charities over the years. They are currently investigating 12 charity areas with other areas of research in the pipeline including Eyeglasses to improve workers' manual dexterity
The following is a very brief summary of GiveWell’s explanation of the topic
"Suffering from visual impairment may cause a loss of productivity at work, which may, in turn, affect incomes and employment opportunities. These economic effects are likely to be especially pronounced for individuals who rely on their manual dexterity (fine motor control) and/or visual discrimination for their work.
Reddy et al. 2018 is an RCT conducted on tea pickers in Assam, India. It found that, among the population of workers diagnosed with presbyopia, those randomly selected to receive eyeglasses experienced a 21.7% increase in productivity (95% confidence interval: 18.6-24.8%), measured in terms of the weight of tea picked, relative to those who did not.
There have been no studies on the effect of being given eyeglasses on the productivity of those who rely on their manual dexterity who work inside.“
Update 2025-05-14 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has indicated they are currently minded to resolve the market as Yes, stating this is clear from the existing resolution criteria. Resolution has been paused for discussion. See the linked comment for more details.
1,000People are also trading
@mods I think it should resolve YES now, the spreadsheet has been updated and a grant was given
https://www.givewell.org/research/grants/london-school-hygiene-tropical-medicine-eyeglasses-may-2024
@spiderduckpig Hmm, but this is funding an RCT to measure the efficacy, not a deployment of the program at scale.
@NathanpmYoung is active on the site, best to ping him and give him a chance to resolve his market before asking mods to step in
@NathanpmYoung and @shankypanky : This market should remain open based on both established precedent in these (GiveWell) markets and the wording of the market description.
On precedent
Cash transfers: GiveWell has funded multiple RCTs on cash transfers (documented in their spreadsheets), yet these markets remained open because funding research ≠ recommending the intervention itself. The markets have not even had a jump before based on that fact - it's been clear to everyone that research funding doesn't trigger resolution (and if it did, the market would have never been made to begin with since it would have been resolved Yes from the start).
Intermittent preventive treatment in infants (IPTi) for malaria: When GiveWell funded a scoping trial for IPTi, @DismalScientist and @jacksonpolack correctly pointed this out and messaged Nathan/commented on the market. Nathan then kept the market open, recognizing that preliminary research funding doesn't satisfy the resolution criteria. The market then appropriately returned to its previous price point.
On the explicit wording of this market: The resolution criteria states: "This question resolves positively if GiveWell gives a grant or publishes a recommendation that grants be given to fund Eyeglasses to improve workers' manual dexterity."
What GiveWell has done is fundamentally different - they've funded research to determine if eyeglasses would be worth funding as an intervention. This is a real distinction that traders (including at least the people who returned the IPTi market to it's previous price and myself) relied upon when making their predictions/share purchases.
To illustrate with an analogy: This would be like resolving a market titled "Will I recommend my friend buy a 2024 Honda Accord?" as "YES" simply because you visited a dealership to test drive it alongside four other car models.
The research phase (test drive) is clearly distinct from the recommendation phase (telling your friend to buy the Accord).
Resolving this market positively now would:
Contradict pretty well established precedent
Misinterpret the market's explicit wording
I request that this market remain open until GiveWell either funds eyeglasses directly or actually recommends them as an intervention (not simply recommends seeing if it is worthwhile as an intervention).
@RobertCousineau @NathanpmYoung tbc I'm just a mod and saw this in the queue and I don't have an opinion. it's up to Nathan to review the proposed resolution and either resolve or not - I didn't look at it at all, just noticed he wasn't pinged before it went to mod reports.
It is incorrect that the purpose of the grant is simply to study the effects of giving eyeglasses with no actual direct effects from the market. The grant itself states: "The trial will have a significant direct benefit, in providing eyeglasses to 10,000 workers with near-vision impairments during the study, and to 10,000 additional workers after the study." The 10,000 eyeglasses provided directly by the study, and the 10,000 eyeglasses provided after the study is concluded, indicate that this grant's effects include not just researching the effects of eyeglasses, but also involve a significant distribution of them, intended to cause direct benefit to the involved communities outside of just research.
This differentiates it pretty clearly from the IPTI market and it would seem highly arbitrary to me if it was decided that this grant that directly funds 10,000 eyeglasses to workers after the study is concluded does not count as a "funding eyeglasses."
@spiderduckpig Even if the first 10,000 eyeglasses provided by the study are somehow compromised and don't count as "funding eyeglasses," just because they are a part of a study, unresolving this directly contradicts GiveWell's explicit inclusion of 10,000 additional eyeglasses to be distributed to workers with near-vision impairments after the study, which could potentially impact thousands of lives and improve the quality of life of thousands of people.
The significant direct benefit of this grant is explicitly mentioned as one of the two motivating factors for this grant.
Excerpt:
We are recommending this grant because:
Its results will influence our future grantmaking. In the event the trial provides a negative update, it would lead us to direct funding away from eyeglasses and toward other, more cost-effective giving opportunities. In the event it provides a positive update, the trial would make us more likely to recommend large grants for eyeglass programs in the future. We believe the intervention currently has significant room for more funding.
The trial will have a significant direct benefit, in providing eyeglasses to 10,000 workers with near-vision impairments during the study, and to 10,000 additional workers after the study.
And:
The trial will have the direct benefit of providing free eyeglasses to around 20,000 working-age adults. The 10,000 people across the two treatment groups in India and Kenya will receive free eyeglasses during the trial, and the 10,000 in the control group will be given them after the trial ends.
https://www.givewell.org/research/grants/london-school-hygiene-tropical-medicine-eyeglasses-may-2024
@spiderduckpig I think you are being disingenuous. First off, you bought shares for yes in the IPTI market up to 78%. That indicates to me that you thought about the markets in the same fashion prior to making these counter arguments (and then selling most of your position in it), not that you thought "they are pretty clearly differentiated", as you just said in your comment. I suspect your arguments are post-hoc justifications.
On your object level points:
Givewell stating the benefit of the glasses indicates this should count (they said: "The trial will have a significant direct benefit, in providing eyeglasses to 10,000 workers with near-vision impairments during the study, and to 10,000 additional workers after the study."). It would be ridiculous for them not to recognize that as a benefit while doing the RCT. That does not mean that is the primary purpose of funding said RCT. If they thought that the intervention was good enough already, they would have just bought a bunch of glasses instead of also paying researcher salaries and other research focused overhead (which is the majority of the cost of this grant).
The study giving 10,000 glasses to people after completion: This is them giving the glasses to the control group of the study. This is not what you imply when you say "GiveWell's explicit inclusion of 10,000 additional eyeglasses to be distributed to workers with near-vision impairments after the study,". The 10,000 "additional" people are already part of the study (the control group)! It's bringing those people in parity to the intervention group, to avoid ethical concerns.
In general:
This grant is for 4.8 million dollars. They are distributing 20,000 glasses in total during the trial.
Restoring Vision (an NGO who distributes glasses to people in Kenya) estimates their costs at 2 dollars.
Dot Glasses (another NGO) estimated their costs at a bit over 3 dollars to distribute glasses. This is to both Kenya and Uttar Pradesh. Further citation for them here.
If we estimate the cost of glasses in this trial at $10 each (likely way high!) they are still only spending $200,000 of the $4,800,000 for this trial on the "direct impact". That is less than 5% of the total cost of the trial going to the "direct impact". The direct impact is not the point of this trial!
>I think you are being disingenuous. First off, you bought shares for yes in the IPTI market up to 78%. That indicates to me that thought about the markets in the same fashion prior to making these counter arguments (and then selling most of your position in it), not that you thought "they are pretty clearly differentiated".
Firstly, you can very clearly see that I intentionally traded that market to a significantly lower percentage than this market. I traded this market to 95% and the other to 75%. Secondly, I don't see how my trading activity is relevant to the resolution of the market? I traded that market high but I am not interested in having significant positions in markets where the outcome is going to be decided over a long pedantic argument in the comments instead of a clear resolution criteria, but you can see I still have a small YES position in it.
>The study giving 10,000 glasses to people after completion: This is them giving the glasses to the control group of the study. This is not what you imply when you say "GiveWell's explicit inclusion of 10,000 additional eyeglasses to be distributed to workers with near-vision impairments after the study,". The 10,000 "additional" people are already part of the study (the control group)! It's bringing those people in parity to the intervention group, to avoid ethical concerns.
First of all, GiveWell directly cites this as a benefit in the study. Secondly, I don't see how this is for ethical concerns when the vast majority of scientific studies are not giving out the treatment to the control group after the study is completed. They had no obligation to do this. Frankly, this is just trying to twist the wording they used when they very unambiguously state that the direct benefit is one of two reasons why they recommended this grant.
>If we estimate the cost of glasses in this trial at $10 each (likely way high!) they are still only spending $200,000 of the $4,800,000 for this trial on the "direct impact". That is less than 5% of the total cost of the trial going to the "direct impact". The direct impact is not the point of this trial!
Firstly, the cost of distribution must surely also include the costs of finding people with near-vision disabilities, paying people to travel and meet with people in remote regions, etc., so it may be larger than that. A huge problem this is trying to address is undiagnosed near-vision disability, which makes it harder to identify people with those disabilities when you have to actually find and diagnose those people, instead of just handing out random glasses on the street.
Secondly, I don't see any requirement for the funding to be any certain percentage of the total grant? Thirdly, $200,000 is a very significant grant that will impact thousands of people. If this grant was just "$200,000 for eyeglasses," I think 99% of people would agree that would count for the purposes of this market. Finally, the fact that GiveWell itself stated that one of the two reasons why they funded the grant is because of the direct benefit shows that the direct benefit is a significant component of this grant, and an EA-focused organization is surely considering the significance of this impact.
You can argue about the effectiveness of this, but the fact remains that we are not arguing about the effectiveness of this grant, but GiveWell's intentions in making this grant. And they unequivocally state that the direct benefit was one of the two reasons behind their intention of making the grant.
@RobertCousineau what is the established precedent here, can you show me? I made all these markets so I am confused that there is precident (which contradicts their literal wording)
Betting this down because the case for this intervention is that eyeglasses are (a) cheap and (b) generate lots of productivity improvements for workers, yet the workers and their employers are not already buying sufficient eyeglasses. This despite workers/employers probably capturing almost all of the economic gain between them, despite the payback period for the investment being short, and despite said gain being directly and almost immediately measurable for a treated individual.
This suggests to me either that the gains are not in fact nearly as big as the Reddy RCT estimates, or maybe that all you need to do is tell people about how eyeglasses make them money. In the former case, perhaps Givewell will discover this and decide not to fund this cause area; in the latter, Givewell will presumably not be funding direct distribution.
Estimated a 24% base rate among programs GiveWell listed in 2017 but had not given a grant too yet (https://www.givewell.org/research/intervention-reports/august-2017-version)