Yes, if given a choice of spending someone else's money on research to cure either malaria or baldness, they would pick malaria. However, it seems your step-father has already made the decision about how to best spend his own money.

He may be modeling it as (or similar to) a prisoner's dilemma, with the assumption that only a huge infusion of funds could cure malaria. In this case, assuming a democracy, "spending other people's money" is more like enforcing an agreement contract in a dilemma game.

(This model is wrong, of course, but I doubt many people are aware of the expected disability-adjusted-years-gained-per-dollars-spent-on-mosquito nets statistics)

This might sound like a nitpick, but I think it's important, the parent's step-father most likely spent his money on what were advertised as cures and treatments that guaranteed to solve his baldness problems. I doubt he put that money directly into baldness research, but instead spent it on what was supposed to be a viable product.

I think it's an unfair distinction. Would I spend money on a solution that directly affects me or would I invest in a possible treatment that doesn't affect me? That belief that the first choice is available and implemented heavily skews the balance.

Your step-father already had the choice of donating that money to malaria research or prevention programmes. Sure, the former isn't guaranteed to lead to success, but from what I hear hair-growth products don't exactly have a stellar track record either (unlike malaria prevention programmes).

Of course. If everyone was a perfect little rational automaton then they would weigh all the factors and choose appropriately.

Bu they aren't.

Social and cultural norms, advertising, pride, self esteem, distance and on and on influence people to choose the hair products over people's lives.

I'm not saying its wrong to want to keep your hair over saving people from malaria. But I am saying its wrong to think that "the market" is this perfect thing and "rational actors" actually exist.

The market is great, but it isn't right about everything, and people don't have enough information and are too easily influenced by everything else to be considered rational about anything.

It's also entirely possible that if baldness was cured, he'd have more hair, which would give him more confidence, which would in turn affect everything in his life including his earning potential, which he may then donate to curing malaria in much greater amounts.

At least if I was selling Rogaine, that's how I might spin it.

I don't know how much I like this sort of statement. It seems like such a damning thing when someone professes that they'd do one thing, but end up doing another. We like to consider it hypocrisy, or at least inconsistency. (Note: for all I know, furyofantares' stepfather donates 2x as much money to malaria research/prevention than hair-loss prevention, I really have no idea).

But it seems like we all do this sort of thing, at least part of the time. Baldness is an issue apparently directly affecting furyofantares' stepfather, on a daily basis. Malaria isn't. Should we expect him to keep malaria constantly on his mind whenever making economic decisions?