Oh, I agree with you that GiveDirectly has second and third-order effects that may be more significant than the obvious effect of “we handed them cash!”, which I why I prefer to view interventions in terms of how they shift incentives rather than their immediate visible impact. (This is the primary reason why I strongly prefer interventions that set up or alter institutions, rather than transfer resources. Unfortunately, directly exporting good governance has gone out of style, and so instead we have resource extraction firms exporting good resource extraction ability but little else.)
Oh, I agree with you that GiveDirectly has second and third-order effects that may be more significant than the obvious effect of “we handed them cash!”, which I why I prefer to view interventions in terms of how they shift incentives rather than their immediate visible impact. (This is the primary reason why I strongly prefer interventions that set up or alter institutions, rather than transfer resources. Unfortunately, directly exporting good governance has gone out of style, and so instead we have resource extraction firms exporting good resource extraction ability but little else.)