https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/case-for-charter-cities-effective-altruism (archived announcement, archived report)
Excerpt:
A substantial theoretical and empirical economic literature argues that institutions are the primary determinant of long-run economic outcomes. The paper offers a brief introduction to the institutions literature and presents two case studies focusing on sets of major institutional reforms that pulled billions out of extreme poverty: India and China. We discuss the potential areas for reform in a charter city and the widespread success of special economic zones and other projects like charter cities.
Finally, we make an initial effort at quantifying the cost-effectiveness of charter cities. Although the model is relatively simplistic, it allows for direct comparison between GiveWell’s top charities and the Charter Cities Institute. Our modeling suggests that a single charter city could be as effective as Deworm the World, GiveWell’s top charity, within 50 years. Under a set of optimistic but not unreasonable assumptions, a charter city could be over 40 times as effective as Deworm the World.
Most of their analysis looks right.
But they implicitly assume a 100% chance of generating a charter city with better institutions than the host country, given a certain amount of effort on their part. I'd be eagerly donating to them if I believed that. But I expect most countries have political problems which will cause them to reject any charter city effort that comes from outside their country.
I'll estimate a less than 5% chance that any US based charity will catalyze the creation of a charter city in another country, and if such a charter city is created, I'll estimate maybe a 50% chance of it having better institutions than the host country. So I'm dividing their expected impact estimates by about 50 or 100.
Also, seems like full-on state-building—which is presumably what would need to happen in terra nullius—is a different (harder?) task than a charter city. As I understand things, charter cities typically rely on many services/institutions of their host polity.