Hubbard, Clark, and Harvey (2020) on Markets and Animal Welfare

For various presentations I have prepared bullet-point notes on animal welfare articles. I thought I would migrate some of them to the Animals and Econ blog. These notes are not meant to constitute a summary of the article, but they do convey some of the flavor of the publication, as well as, at times, my own reaction/commentary -- though which bits are which remains a closely guarded secret. Without further ado...

Hubbard, Carmen, Beth Clark, and David Harvey, “Farm Animal Welfare: Do Free Markets Fail to Provide It?” Chapter 2, pages 30-52, in B. V. Ahmadi, D. Moran, and R. D’Eath, eds., The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare, CABI, 2020.

• Many (or most) people say that farm animal welfare means a lot to them, and that they are willing-to-pay for improved animal welfare.

• These expressed preferences do not seem to be widely reflected in purchase decisions for meat, eggs, and other animal products.

• Do the markets for animal products deliver the “socially optimal” amount of farm animal welfare? 

• The authors take the “no direct standing for non-human animals” approach to efficiency – only human interest in animal welfare, not the animals’ own interest, is considered.

• Is animal welfare a public good? (No, with respect to the usual economics sense of the term.) "Clearly, cruelty to animals is a public bad, at least as far as most modern societies are concerned [p. 37]."  Enforced regulations that provide higher welfare do have public good qualities, in that once society establishes higher animal welfare standards, everyone in that society "consumes" it, no individual is excluded, no one consumes products with low animal welfare.

• Consumption externalities might be common with respect to animal products: your consumption of animal products might offend me; nonetheless, those who are offended by what other people consume might have a zero willingness to pay for any animal product, so their preferences for more-humane products will not be expressed within the animal products market per se.

• Animal welfare might be a “credence attribute” -- you can't reliably judge the welfare quality of animal products even after you have consumed them, much less in advance of purchase.

• If I realize that my own choices will have essentially zero impact on animal welfare levels, I might not be willing to pay for higher-welfare products. However, if I know that others are contributing, then I might be willing to pay. That is, a person’s willingness to pay for better animal welfare might depend upon other people paying, too.

• Is more information helpful/desirable? Distrust of current information might be one reason that preferences for higher welfare are not expressed fully in the market -- though surely some people would prefer not to have more animal welfare information directed towards them.