Market and Institutional Limits in Supplying Animal Welfare: some Conceptual Thoughts for Future Agricultural Economic Research

Abstract

Providing adequate levels of farm animal welfare is a challenge in today’s societies. Economic research indicates that neither market valuation for credence attributes in opaque markets, nor transparency improved market valuation with labelling schemes, nor non-market valuation in hypothetical markets to consider non-use values, nor non-monetary valuation in an ethical context are suitable to capture the value dimensions of farm animal welfare adequately. Monetary and non-monetary valuation problems stem from the complex concept of farm animal welfare and ethical challenges in utilitarian and anthropocentric approaches. Animal centred valuation of farm animal welfare is suggested as one future venue of economic research conditioned on overcoming speciesism.