Will GiveWell recommend a grant to support unconditional cash transfers before 2027?
Standard
34
Ṁ11k
2026
34%
chance

This question resolves positively if GiveWell gives a grant or publishes a recommendation that grants be given to unconditional cash transfers 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 “Cash transfers” row of the GiveWell program reviews spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TG7WRU85p1SEjir-5qvIEg4kVG9a4Lnzdgwcub8aKSs/edit#gid=0) or a spreadsheet that supersedes it.

The cash tranfers must be unconditional in the sense that they are given regardless of other outcomes. However ther benefits may be unrelated. The money must be given to primarily support unconditional cash transfers (as opposed to an organsation that primarily does other work).

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predicts NO

Seems like it is essentially GiveWell's entire raison d'etre to never recommend cash transfers, in the sense that they are constantly trying to research and investigate to build a list of charitable opportunities that perform better than cash transfers. So, it seems like this could only happen if:

- Givewell becomes very pessimistic about many different categories of charity simultaneously
- They become absolutely FLOODED with donations (much moreso than at any point in the past, where they lowered their bar to around 5x cash transfers)
- They become convinced that cash transfers are actually 5x-10x better than they previously thought.
- Cash transfers don't actually meet their bar, but for some reason they recommend them anyways?? Perhaps helping get a new organization off the ground, in the hopes that it will eventually scale and become a top charity?

Neither of these seem likely enough that the sum of their probabilities supports this market.

Recent study found significant positive spillovers and a 2.4 multiplier https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26600/w26600.pdf. Does not seem like that would close the gap with the other GiveWell Top charities though.

To clarify, do Labeled Cash Transfers count? https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20130225

Presumably this excludes GiveDirectly prior to the date of the start of this market?