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Clarity comments on Open Thread, January 11-17, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Direct impact careers - the topic EA's often skirt around. I'm somewhat disturbed by one of the first exposures to EA: that medicine is not an effective, altruistic career whatsoever because the shear supply of people interested and capable of becoming doctors is so great (even after artificial restriction). It seems rather theoretical. What is the the economic term for 'replaceability of workers by the labour workforce'? It would be something like a human equivelant of fungibility, with perhaps some element of 'elasticity'. I'd want to see empirical work in this area.
I'm not sure whether the "even after" makes sense in that sentence. There are a lot of interested and capable people applying to med-school If you get into medschool that means that one of those people won't get into med-school.
On the other hand if you become a skilled programmer you don't take a job away from anyone. That's why 80,000hour recommends people to rather become a programmer at a startup then to study medicine.
I'm sure someone else can answer this better, but it sounds like you're asking for "empirical work," but aren't willing to explain why you're unsatisfied with the empirical work that you can find by searching websites like GiveWell and 80000 Hours.
I actually just forget to recheck those sources. It's happened with one of my recent posts too. I suppose it's just a habit I ought to pay more attention to. Though, it could be missing from 80k too.