I am an Economist with 25 years experience at UC Berkeley, the University of Essex, the University of Exeter, Rethink Priorities, and in other consulting and teaching roles. With the support of independent grants, I founded and co-manage the Unjournal for credible journal-independent peer-evaluation, the EA Market Testing team, and I conduct further research into motivators of effective giving.
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Citations are used in papers for various purposes, including giving credit to past papers for career points, providing evidence and support for the citing author, claiming that the work is grounded in or contributes to existing literature, and referring readers to previous useful work. However, this can confuse the scientific record, especially when authors do not clearly identify the purpose of their citations and what they argue the cited papers are claiming.
Jan 2
2019
“These people are just virtue signaling”; in the popular internet discourse this has come to mean “these people are just doing a useless activity to impress their friends”. But there is a stronger argument that “virtue signaling” is a good thing… People to do good for a social reward is how our society works (Adam Smith Institute’s Bowman makes a similar point). An oversimplified explanation from Economics/game theory: “Signaling” can only work if the action that sends the signal conveys information about an individual’s type For it to be informative, only those who are virtuous must want to do the action that sends the signal Thus it must be more costly for the baddies to do this action than for the goodies.
Aug 18
Large companies generously offer to support employee ‘pro-bono’ work and volunteer work, offering set-aside days and even donations matching hours; (documented in my “innovationsinfundraising.org” database here). They are in general more willing to do this than to donate directly, or to match employee contributions. However, there is often a skills mismatch; few people can be as productive when volunteering for a charity as they are in their main job (although orgs like BeyondMe try to improve things).
Jan 31
Dr. David Reinstein Founder and co-director, The Unjournal Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Maastricht Director, Effective Altruism Marketing Team Download pdf version of CV here daaronr@gmail.com | Personal professional page: davidreinstein.org | Wordpress page (former) Background: I am an Economist with 25 years experience at UC Berkeley, the University of Essex, the University of Exeter, Rethink Priorities, and in other consulting and teaching roles. My work has involved economics and quantitative social-science research, sharing research tools, and disseminating and promoting the impact of my research; as well as teaching (at undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional/executive levels), research supervision, and educational administration and entrepreneurship.
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