This is great! Might I suggest basis points for the numerator unit, since the quantities are so small. Then the unit can be “bips per billion“, with your reference quantity at 20bps/$B.
“Points” suggests absolute; “%” suggests relative; my current unit is relative-ish and using points might be confusing.
I don’t know why but I usually think in terms of cost per unit good, not good per unit cost. I said “1% future-improvement per $5B” but I really think like “$5B per 1% future-improvement.”
I don’t know why but I usually think in terms of cost per unit good, not good per unit cost. I said “1% future-improvement per $5B” but I really think like “$5B per 1% future-improvement.”
These two old GWWC posts (1, 2) argue for using good per unit cost since that’s arithmetically more convenient/intuitive in relevant scenarios. Most relevant excerpts below:
[Unlike consumers making day-to-day purchases (e.g. when you want to buy exactly one chocolate bar, and you are interested in comparing how much money you can save by choosing between various shops),] donors are usually interested in the differences in how much good they can do with a given amount of money, rather than the differences in how much money they can save for a given amount of good they want to do.
And:
What the considerations in post I and this post suggest is that it is usually wise to report cost-effectiveness in terms of DALY/$ rather than $/DALY, because then
the comparison of differences in cost-effectiveness that we care about are more conspicuous, as the differences could be obtained by simple subtraction and;
the most often relevant averages of cost-effectiveness could be reached simply by taking the familiar arithmetic mean, rather than the more cumbersome harmonic mean.
This is great! Might I suggest basis points for the numerator unit, since the quantities are so small. Then the unit can be “bips per billion“, with your reference quantity at 20bps/$B.
That would be fine too.
“Points” suggests absolute; “%” suggests relative; my current unit is relative-ish and using points might be confusing.
I don’t know why but I usually think in terms of cost per unit good, not good per unit cost. I said “1% future-improvement per $5B” but I really think like “$5B per 1% future-improvement.”
These two old GWWC posts (1, 2) argue for using good per unit cost since that’s arithmetically more convenient/intuitive in relevant scenarios. Most relevant excerpts below:
And: