And how does the United States do? The good news is that we don’t finish last. We do finish last in fan passion. Along with Japan, South Korea and Australia, we are one of only four World Cup nations where soccer is not the most-searched sport. But we’re helped out by our big population and, over all, finish slightly ahead of Australia.
From a utilitarian’s perspective, Australia’s winless showing in the tournament is better than the alternative.
What’s the bigger lesson from this? As a development economist, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to create the most good with limited resources. As part of this work, I recently led a class on charitable giving. The students analyzed some domestic charities, but mostly international ones. Although they found some domestic charities that were doing important and seemingly effective work, their analysis was unambiguous: If they were giving strictly out of altruism with utilitarian principles, they could have a bigger impact by sending money to developing-country charities. The needs are far greater, and the cost of helping is much lower.
Often I hear people argue against the idea of framing charitable giving as a choice. But that would make sense only if someone invented a magic dollar bill that could help two charities at once. Ultimately, life is full of choices. Just as we can’t have more than one winner of the World Cup, we also cannot send the same dollar to two different organizations. We must choose. So let’s choose the ones that will have the biggest impact.
*Dean Karlan is an economics professor at Yale and the founder of Innovations for Poverty Action, which looks for and promotes cost-effective solutions to poverty.