David Rhys Bernard

Lead exposure is a large problem with social costs on the order of $5-10 trillion annually, most of which come through neurological damages and losses in IQ causing lost income later in life. Lead exposure is diverse both in terms of sources and geography, with there being many different pathways for environmental lead to enter the human body and exposure being common across nearly all low- and middle-income countries. Although the proportion of the lead burden attributable to different sources is unclear, important exposure pathways include informal recycling of lead acid batteries, residential use of lead-based paint, consumption of lead-adulterated foodstuffs, and cookware manufactured with scrap lead. Rough initial cost-effectiveness estimates suggest that some strategies for dealing with lead exposure could be as or more cost-effective than GiveWell top charities.

The value of charter cities can be divided into three main buckets: (1) direct benefits from providing an engine of growth that increase the incomes and wellbeing of people living in and around the city, (2) domestic indirect benefits from scaling up successful charter city policies across the host country, and (3) global indirect benefits from providing a laboratory to experiment with new policies, regulations, and governance structures. We think it is unlikely that charter cities will be more cost-effective than GiveWell top charities in terms of directly improving wellbeing.