Claim explainer: donor lotteries and returns to scale

Abstract

Sometimes, new technical developments in the discourse around effective altruism can be difficult to understand if you’re not already aware of the underlying principles involved. I’m going to try to explain the connection between one such new development and an important underlying claim. In particular, I’m going to explain the connection between donor lotteries (as recently implemented by Paul Christiano in cooperation with Carl Shulman) and returns to scale.