A friend told me he's considering doing a PhD in economics, and he might try to target the research topic toward animal welfare. What kinds of questions might he want to pursue? Below are some of my suggestions.

A lot depends on the specific focus (micro, macro, econometrics, financial, development, policy, etc.) and the intended outcome after the PhD (Wall Street, academia, non-profit), but here are some generic ideas. The first two seem plausibly acceptable topics; the next ones are a big stretch, but maybe they could be tolerated in a lenient or interdisciplinary program.

Anyway, good luck with the decision, whether you pursue an animal-focused PhD or not!

--My favorite: Barriers to adoption of humane slaughter--
Advocates of controlled-atmosphere killing suggest that CAK can save money in addition to being more humane for the chickens. PETA has an excellent report detailing, on page after page, why CAK should result in fewer bruises, reduced contamination, improved tissue longevity, less wasted meat, and so on. The report also featured quotations from industry and government leaders praising CAK on economic grounds. As one example of the advantages, page 22 of the report says

The CAK model almost completely eliminates [...] potential contamination by killing birds in their transport containers rather than dumping and shackling them alive, so they do not inhale in the stun bath or defecate in the scalding tank and are not prone to bruising during shackling. This has significant implications for producers since, according to the USDA (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007), about 4 million chickens are condemned each year for being contaminated.

This raises the questions: Is CAK really as good economically as the report portrays, or are there many cases where it doesn't pay off? What are the barriers to adoption of CAK? Is it just inertia -- waiting for the old plants to wear out? What are the biggest remaining costs, and is there research that could mitigate them?

More generally, what is the landscape for adoption of humane-slaughter systems? How much more expensive are they? 1%? 10%? 30%? What factors drive the decisions here? Costs? Government requirements? Activist pressure? Besides CAK, another case of interest to me is electric stunning of fish, since most of the ~1 trillion fish harvested each year are killed without humane-slaughter processes. You might, for instance, contact Jeff Lines to learn more about the state of affairs here.

--Meat elasticities and consumer preferences--
These are probably the most standard animal-related topics that fit into economics research. Bailey Norwood is the pioneer, and any of his papers -- or his book, Compassion by the Pound -- can give you ideas. At one point he and I considered writing an extension of "How Much Direct Suffering Is Caused by Various Animal Foods?" that included data on the differential elasticities of demand for different types of meat. The Compassion book was originally titled Ham and Eggonomics, and I wrote two reviews of it (part 1 and part 2) that go into a lot more detail. Bailey has also studied consumer willingness-to-pay for humane meat, such as in "Consumer Preferences for Farm Animal Welfare: Results From a Telephone Survey of U.S. Households."

--Meat-consumption transitions and trends--
People like me talk a lot about "creating new vegetarians" via veg outreach. For example, here I estimate what I think is a very, very conservative figure of $52 to create a new vegetarian through Facebook ads. (I would guess it's actually more like $10 or $20.) However, the catch is the duration for which these people stay veg. Probably most of them don't become veg for life. What's the distribution of how long before relapse? Maybe 40% for two days, 30% for two months, 15% for 6 months, etc.?

How have trends in vegetarianism fared over the years? What contribution has been played by groups like Vegan Outreach compared with health concerns, environmentalism, Buddhism/Hinduism, etc.? How much did vegetarianism contribute to the recent decline in US meat consumption compared with other factors?

--Pesticide economics--
What are the economics of pesticide use, and what do they tell us about prospects for humane insecticides? In this blog post, I quote Jeff Lockwood enumerating pest-control methods that he conjectures are more vs. less painful. How much would it cost for farms to switch to the preferred methods, and in what cases is it most easy to do that? Which types of foods are produced using gentler ways of killing bugs?

In these conversations, I'm always quick to add that I don't necessarily want less pesticide use because pesticides, especially broad-spectrum ones, significantly reduce insect populations and so prevent vast numbers of painful natural deaths by short-lived invertebrates. On the whole, it's plausible that pesticides prevent more suffering than they cause. However, if we can use control approaches that kill the same number of insects with much less attendant pain, then I'm highly in favor of that. Also note that organic pesticides (e.g., Bt) and natural pest control (e.g., introducing predators of the target bug) are probably some of the most painful killing methods, so "organic" definitely does not equal "humane" here.

--Animal donors--
Describe the landscape of animal donors. How many give to which causes? What's the base of people who might be persuaded to donate toward Vegan Outreach, The Humane League, Mercy for Animals, or other veg-outreach organizations? What kinds of marketing works best?

Why don't animal organizations spend more on fundraising? How fixed are donor budgets? If one organization fundraises more, what fraction of money does it take away from the rest? 50%? 95%? (This is, of course, okay if the organizations wherefrom the money is taken had been focused on opposition to the idea of keeping animals in zoos, or had been protesting the principle of any human intervention in nature, or the like.)

What's the opportunity cost of working for an animal organization? In particular, if Matt Ball wasn't working for Vegan Outreach, how much would he be earning and donating to veg outreach by others instead?

--Cost-effectiveness of animal lobbying--
Looking at historical examples of legislative or corporate advocacy, what's the cost per animal-year of suffering prevented by campaigns like Prop 2 or Wendy's animal-welfare improvements? I did a quick prospective estimate in the "Humane Slaughter" section of this post for the case of including chickens under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. The analysis compared well against direct veg outreach, but I think the latter has a lot of positive spillover benefits that the former lacks -- not least being the creation of new advocates and donors who can lobby for further welfare improvements. Plus, my principal goal in donating is to prevent humans from multiplying wild-animal suffering in the far future, and outreach is more likely to further this aim than is legislation alone.

--(not really economics) Ecological dynamics and "welfare biology"--
Economist Yew-Kwang Ng published a wonderful paper called "Towards welfare biology: Evolutionary economics of animal consciousness and suffering."

There's a plenitude of important questions about wild-animal welfare that could be plushly informed by ecological models of population dynamics, including some issues raised in a very recent thread on unethical vegetables. For example, what's the expected effect of climate change on wild-animal numbers? Does growing crops reduce or increase insect abundance on the whole? What effect does roadkill or hunting have on populations both of the killed species and its competitors? What ecological changes can humans do to reduce populations of short-lived, r-selected species and increase long-lived, K-selected species? And on and on.

PETA has an excellent report detailing, on page after page, why CAK should result in fewer bruises, reduced contamination, improved tissue longevity, less wasted meat, and so on. The report also featured quotations from industry and government leaders praising CAK on economic grounds.

I think the question of how costly animal-welfare regulations are is interesting. Gary Francione says that animal-rights groups like PETA and the HSUS have been tricked into compromises that mandate what industry wants to do anyway. Or maybe he says that the animal-rights groups are complicit—that they use supposed victories to raise more money. I think he says both.

One example of a controversial compromise is H.R. 3798, the bill that would mandate "enriched" cages for laying hens. The HSUS and United Egg Producers negotiated the bill, which would improve conditions for laying hens and avoid conflicting regulations in different states by establishing a national standard. The standards would be phased in over 15 (!) years. This webpage lists the groups in favor and those opposed:

Groups Opposed

• Egg Farmers of America
• American Farm Bureau Federation
• National Farmers Union
• National Turkey Federation
• National Pork Producers Council
• National Milk Producers Federation
• National Cattlemens Beef Association
• American Sheep Industry Association
• Humane Farming Association
• Animal Welfare Institute
• Associated Humane Societies
• Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Animals
• FARM
• Friends of Animals
• Humane Farming Association
• United Poultry Concerns

Groups For

• Animal Legal Defense Fund
• Farm Sanctuary
• Mercy For Animals
• In Defense of Animals
• The Humane Society of the United States
• Compassion over Killing
• The ASPCA
• The Human League
• The United Egg Producers
• World Society for the Protection of Animals
• Compassion in World Farming
• Association of California Egg Farmers
• Colorado Egg Producers Association
• Florida Poultry Association
• Michigan Agri-Business Association
• Michigan Allied Poultry Industry
• North Carolina Egg Association

It's odd that there would be so many strange bedfellows on both sides. Why is this the case? Obviously, they can't all be right!

It's sad to see animal-advocacy groups wasting energy to fight each other. At the very least, I wish those that didn't support the egg bill on principle would apply their resources on something else, so as to avoid producing negative value through their efforts.

The people who work at the Humane Farming Association may have good hearts, but I really don't agree with their hard stance against the egg bill. Here's from their website opposing it:

Responding to the Rotten Egg Bill's (H.R. 3798) Specific Points

For political cover, UEP inserted a few diversionary provisions. None of them holds up to scrutiny.

Ammonia Levels: The Rotten Egg Bill contains nothing that alters current standards for “ammonia levels.” The bill merely duplicates UEP’s existing standards (which allow unhealthful levels of ammonia) and seeks to put that into federal law.

Forced Molting and Euthanasia: As for ending the practice of forced molting of hens by “starvation” and water deprivation – egg companies do not advocate that to begin with. Far from changing any currently accepted molting practice, the bill merely adopts UEP’s own existing standards. The same goes for “euthanasia” standards and other empty provisions tossed in to distract from the central issue: keeping hens in cages.

UEP’s Game of Inches: Prior to the Rotten Egg Bill, the egg industry passed state legislation calling for 116 square inches of cage space per hen. With a mere 8 square inch adjustment, UEP’s federal bill calls for a still cruel and depriving 124 square inches per hen – “phased-in” over 18 years. This token modification does not “double” the cage space from what UEP has already advocated as a standard. The bill’s own proponents have stated that a hen needs at least 216 square inches just to spread her wings.

Decriminalizing Animal Abuse: The bill contains no criminal penalties whatsoever. While overriding state laws which do contain appropriate criminal penalties, the Rotten Egg Bill would shift all authority to the industry-controlled USDA.

Fraudulent Labeling: As far as labeling egg cartons, UEP’s Rotten Egg Bill certainly would do that. For the very first time, the fraudulent term “enriched” cages would begin appearing on egg cartons nationwide – in order to deflect public concern – and to increase egg sales from caged hens.

The position of the Humane Farming Association and other responsible activists and organizations remains clear:

Cruelty is cruelty.
There is no such thing as an “enriched” battery cage.
No humane organization should ever endorse these abusive confinement systems.
Our state laws and voting rights must not be given away.

If you read it carefully, you'll see that the main argument here is that "the bill doesn't go far enough." The "Game of Inches" point is very misleading, because yes, while some state legislation calls for 116 square inches, most hens in the US have just 52 to 67 right now.

HFA makes one other valid criticism, which is that the national bill would prevent further state legislation. But state laws take a lot of effort to pass, and it's not as though most of the states are anywhere near banning caged hens.

HSUS has a nice reply to HFA point-by-point. And HSUS notes an interesting tidbit: "While California is HFA’s home state, the group refused to support Prop 2, instead choosing to remain neutral and allow the rest of the animal movement to fight the agribusiness industry."

This case seems (to an outsider like me) to be one more instance of a general theme in the animal movement in which hard-core (and probably rights-oriented) advocates refuse to accept anything less than complete animal liberation. If you have a value function that cares less about the degree of suffering of animals compared against "whether the animals are being exploited," then I suppose such an attitude makes sense. But it's not very utilitarian. Opposing reform and instead hoping for a revolution seems less likely to work than gradual change, which not only achieves suffering reduction in the short term but helps to solidify long-term changes in cultural attitudes toward animal welfare.

Alan Dawrst wrote:If you have a value function that doesn't care about the degree of suffering of animals but just asks whether the animals "are being exploited" or not, then I suppose such an attitude makes sense. But it's not very utilitarian.

I believe this is exactly right. The all-or-nothing approach of some radical animal-rights organizations flows directly from their underlying moral framework. Gary Francione, for instance, thinks that the problem with factory farming is that animals are owned by human beings. Since ownership does not admit of degrees, any measure that falls short of "complete animal liberation" is regarded by him and his followers as morally equivalent to the status quo.

Still, it would be useful to study past social movements and see how much was accomplished by "abolitionist" approaches analogous to those of Francione relative to welfarist approaches of the sort we favor. It is possible that abolitionism is a more infectious meme than welfarism, and that it should for this reason be promoted even by sophisticated welfarists. Of course, this is probably less likely true if one factors in the effects that such meme-spreading would have on broader issues of utilitarian significance, since abolitionists oppose interventions to alleviate suffering in the wild and would almost certainly oppose cosmic rescue missions to help sentient extraterrestrials.

Pablo Stafforini wrote:It is possible that abolitionism is a more infectious meme than welfarism, and that it should for this reason be promoted even by sophisticated welfarists.

My intuition suggests that gradualism is more infectious, because you can take concrete steps, and at each step along the way, society's values are changed by the reforms and bolstered against backsliding, like a rachet. This is just speculation, though; I haven't studied historical cases in depth.

Pablo Stafforini wrote:Of course, this is probably less likely true if one factors in the effects that such meme-spreading would have on broader issues of utilitarian significance, since abolitionists oppose interventions to alleviate suffering in the wild and would almost certainly oppose cosmic rescue missions to help sentient extraterrestrials.

Yes. There's a correlation between people who take a rights/exploitation view of animal issues and people who oppose intervention in nature. Wild animals are meant to be in the wild, they say. Bernard Rollin (who is a great guy, but unfortunately in the rights camp) talks about not violating the telos of an animal. Helping animals in nature is all about reducing suffering and improving welfare and has little to do with rights, unless we're talking about the "right not to be eaten" or the "right not to be infected with roundworms."

Alan Dawrst wrote:My intuition suggests that gradualism is more infectious, because you can take concrete steps, and at each step along the way, society's values are changed by the reforms and bolstered against backsliding, like a rachet.

I think you have provided a very good reason for thinking that gradualism is more effective (I particularly liked the ratchet simile). But this is compatible with the rival, all-or-nothing approach being more infectious. (My previous message was a bit muddled, and didn't clearly distinguish between effectiveness and infectiousness.)

Hi friends. We, the Spanish animal advocates, have had a lot of debate about the abolition/regulation issue. This debate is usually very unproductive among activists, and it creates a lot of tension.

My opinion is now this:

- I think anti-speciesist outreach is very more cost-effective than politically-oriented activism. So I support the former.
- I think anti-speciesist outreach must not be explicitly opposed to regulations. It's better if they just do their outreach work.
- I want to change the activists' mind about important things (anti-speciesism, suffering in the wild...) so I don't speak for or against regulations. If I would speak for regulations, a lot of abolitionists would reject all what I say about another things. If I would speak against regulations, a lot of regulationists would reject all what I say about another things. Sad but true. Moreover abolitionists a la Gary Francione want to locate the abolition/regulation issue as *the animal issue* -- I don't want, so I will not speak publicly about it among animal advocates.

There are several rights-oriented charities that reject regulations. But it's possible to do just outreach (or even to reject regulations) from a consequentialist approach, if someone that is the most-effective thing we can do.

Daniel Dorado wrote:If I would speak for regulations, a lot of abolitionists would reject all what I say about another things. If I would speak against regulations, a lot of regulationists would reject all what I say about another things. Sad but true. Moreover abolitionists a la Gary Francione want to locate the abolition/regulation issue as *the animal issue* -- I don't want, so I will not speak publicly about it among animal advocates.

Nice point. Sometimes the less said, the better.

Jason Matheny, the founder of New Harvest, is an economist. He has some stuff on his website (http://jgmatheny.org/), of specific interest may be his paper "The Role of Economics in Achieving Welfare Gains for Animals."

Something which it doesn't seem like has been considered in this thread but he talks about is that many anti-animal-welfare people argue that increased animal welfare will cause various societal problems, e.g. keep the poor from accessing nutritious food. Economists can research and write articles for the public discussing whether this is true.

Very nice, xodarap -- thanks for the paper reference and good points!