Welfare Metrics Research Articles

Why management decisions involving marine mammals should include animal welfare

This paper argues the need for consideration of both animal welfare and conservation when making management decisions regarding human activities that affect marine mammals. Population level effects may take a long time to be determined, whereas animal welfare metrics can be observed in the short term, enabling problems to be addressed more rapidly. In addition, implementing current legislation in many countries related to the management of impacts on marine mammals requires animal welfare to be taken into account. Such legislation reflects societal values and public concern for individual animals. Two case studies are discussed. These are: management measures related to incidental killing in commercial fisheries, and injury or disturbance from intense sources of underwater noise from seismic surveys. Both of these threats have welfare and conservation implications for marine mammals. An increased focus on welfare would better reflect societal values including requirements under various legal regimes and could also enable more targeted and effective conservation actions.

A review aggression concerns with group housed sow well being

The global trend toward housing gestating sows in group-pens is primarily driven by welfare concerns associated with the use of individual gestation stalls. Despite transition toward group-housing systems, no housing system has scientifically been identified as being better than another based on current notions of sow well-being. Both benefits and drawbacks are associated with housing gestating sows either individually or in groups. The mainconcern associated with group-housing is increased sow aggression that occurs at mixing and around limited resources, including feed and water. Aggression is inevitable and unavoidable upon mixing of unfamiliar sows, but is necessary for establishment of social hierarchy, which helps reduce overall aggression and tension among the group. Unfortunately, if aggression is intense and prolonged it may lead to stress and compromised sow well-being. With few differences in sow well-being identified between gestation housing systems, it seems plausible that the consequences on sow well-being is not only about the stall or the pen the sow is confined to, but the interactive effects of other housing components. Inpens, some of the most critical factors to consider include space allowance, group size, time of mixing, and feeding systems/strategies which may directly or indirectly affect various welfare metrics (e.g., lesion scores, aggressive behavior, reproduction). It is imperative to minimize aggression among grouped sows and feeding and management strategies are viable options that can be used to reduce aggression among group-housed sows, but not eliminate aggressive encounters. Therefore, the focus of this review is to examine the different feeding and management strategies that can be used to mitigate the drawbacks of group sow housing while improving sow performance, productivity, and well-being.

0432 The human-animal bond: Science-based approaches to improving companion animal welfare and adoption outcomes

There is substantial literature documenting the myriad mutually beneficial effects of the human-animal bond. While such relationships typically enhance the health and well-being of both people and their animal companions, the bond can weaken or fail to be established if the animals do not meet the expectations of the people with whom they interact. The behavioral component of animal welfare is particularly important in this regard, and requires significant attention, as owners of companion animals are often intolerant of behavior problems. These include behaviors characterized as nuisances, such as excessive vocalizations, those that result in aggression toward people or other companion animals, or behaviors that result in injury to the animal or damage to property. Problem behaviors are among the most commonly stated reasons for cat and dog relinquishment, abandonment and euthanasia. Thus, understanding key factors that impact behavioral well-being in these species is important whether the animals are maintained in or intended to be rehomed from breeding programs, shelters, rescues or elsewhere. Consequently, a comprehensive assessment plan for meeting the needs of animal companions that includes their mental and behavioral well-being is necessary to protect the human–animal bond. It is therefore imperative to develop and validate key metrics of companion animal welfare that are practical for field as well as laboratory purposes. Considerations and challenges in developing such metrics will be reviewed, using the development of care and welfare standards for breeding dogs for illustrative purposes.

Wider stall space affects behavior, lesion scores, and productivity of gestating sows.

Limited space allowance within the standard gestation stall is an important welfare concern because it restricts the ability of the sow to make postural adjustments and hinders her ability to perform natural behaviors. Therefore, we evaluated the impacts of increasing stall space and/or providing sows the freedom to access a small pen area on sow well-being using multiple welfare metrics. A total of 96 primi- and multiparous crossbred sows were randomly assigned in groups of 4 sows/treatment across 8 replicates to 1 of 3 stall treatments (TRT): standard stall (CTL; dimensions: 61 by 216 cm), width-adjustable stall (flex stall [FLX]; dimensions: adjustable width of 56 to 79 cm by 216 cm), or an individual walk-in/lock-in stall with access to a small communal open-pen area at the rear of the stall (free-access stall [FAS]; dimensions: 69 by 226 cm). Lesion scores, behavior, and immune and productivity traits were measured at various gestational days throughout the study. Total lesion scores were greatest for sows in FAS and least for sows in FLX ( < 0.001). Higher-parity sows in FAS had the most severe lesion scores (TRT × parity, < 0.0001) and scores were greatest at all gestational days (TRT × day, < 0.05). Regardless of parity, sows in FLX had the least severe scores ( < 0.0001). As pregnancy progressed, lesion scores increased among sows in CTL ( < 0.05). Sow BW and backfat (BF) were greater for sows in FLX and FAS ( < 0.05), and BCS and BF were greater for parity 1 and 2 sows in FAS than the same parity sows in CTL (TRT × parity, < 0.05). Duration and frequency of some postural behaviors and sham chew behavior were affected by TRT ( < 0.05) and time of day (TRT × day, < 0.05). These data indicate that adequate stall space, especially late in gestation, may improve the well-being of higher-parity and heavier-bodied gestating sows as assessed by changes in postural behaviors, lesion severity scores, and other sow traits. Moreover, compromised welfare measures found among sows in various stall environments may be partly attributed to the specific constraints of each stall system such as restricted stall space in CTL, insufficient floor space in the open-pen area of the FAS system, and gate design of the FLX (e.g., direction of bars and feeder space). These results also indicate that parity and gestational day are additional factors that may exacerbate the effects of restricted stall space or insufficient pen space, further compromising sow well-being.

Income redistribution and changes in inequality in New Zealand from 2007 to 2011: Alternative distributions and value judgements

This paper illustrates the effects of using different distributions and summary measures, using New Zealand data for the period 2007–2011. Using an annual accounting period, alternative welfare metrics and units of analysis are investigated. In addition, the sensitivity to assumptions about economies of scale within households is examined, and changes in inequality are decomposed into those arising from population and tax structure changes. When considering the period 2007–2010, all measures agree that inequality fell, although the extent of the reduction varies. For the period 2007–2011 (after the tax reforms of 2010) the answer to the question of whether inequality in New Zealand has risen or fallen depends crucially on the combination of welfare metric, income unit, adult equivalent scale and inequality measure used. In empirical studies, it is therefore important to explore a wide range of alternative approaches, providing information for readers to make their own judgements.

Microprudential Regulation in a Dynamic Model of Banking

This paper studies the quantitative impact of microprudential bank regulations on bank lending and value metrics of efficiency and welfare in a dynamic model of banks that are financed by debt and equity, undertake maturity transformation, are exposed to credit and liquidity risks, and face financing frictions. We show that (1) there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between bank lending, welfare, and capital requirements, (2) liquidity requirements unambiguously reduce lending, efficiency, and welfare, and (3) resolution policies contingent on observed capital, such as prompt corrective action, dominate in efficiency and welfare terms (noncontingent) capital and liquidity requirements.

Welfare Effects of a Shift of Joint to Individual Taxation in the German Personal Income Tax

We empirically derive the welfare effects of a shift from joint to individual taxation of married households in Germany. For the welfare evaluation we estimate the preference heterogeneity and use normative welfare concepts proposed by Fleurbaey (2006) to address the difficulties of comparison between and aggregation of heterogeneous agents. Our results suggest that the normative choice of the welfare metric can be crucial, in particular for the simple question who are the gainers and who are the losers in a reform. Further, we find that it is possible to design a system of individual taxation that would be welfare-improving for different welfare metrics.

Can carbon taxes be progressive?

Most studies have assessed the distributional impact of carbon taxes through their effects on commodity prices alone, while ignoring their impact on individual welfare brought about by changes in factor prices. Yet, the remunerations of capital and labor are not affected by these taxes similarly, and their shares in earned incomes are not uniform across households. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the incidence of carbon taxes on inequality by considering simultaneously the commodity and the income channels. We propose a decomposition of the change in individual welfare metrics. Then, we develop a general equilibrium model to assess the impact of carbon taxes on factor and commodity prices, and subsequently their distributional impact on households, using the Lorenz and concentration curves and the Gini index. Our results suggest that changes in factor prices and changes in commodity prices (especially those of energy commodities) have opposing effects on inequality. Carbon taxes tend to reduce inequality through the changes in factor prices and tend to increase inequality through the changes in commodity prices. Hence, we find a non-monotonic (U-shaped) relationship between carbon taxes and inequality. Our results suggest that the traditional approach of assessing the impact of carbon taxes on inequality through changes in commodity prices alone may be misleading. The findings cast light on the desirability of using both channels in the assessment of carbon taxes on inequality.

Discretion vs. timeless perspective under model-consistent stabilization objectives

Recent literature has reported situations in which discretion dominates timeless perspective in the presence of elements that reduce the slope of the New Keynesian Phillips curve. Considering a model-consistent welfare metric inhibits this mechanism in the standard New Keynesian framework.

Distributional impacts of climate change mitigation in Indian electricity: The influence of governance

Abstract Studies that examine the distributional impacts of climate change mitigation policies often neglect the influence of institutions that implement these policies. This study examines the short-term consumption-side distributional impacts of expanding low-carbon electric supply in the state of Maharashtra, India with a focus on the influence of regulatory discretion in pricing. Households' welfare impacts from economy-wide electricity price shocks are simulated against a baseline that is calibrated to actual household economic and electricity service conditions, including actual electricity budgets, block tier prices and supply rationing. Industrial price impacts are propagated to households using a Leontief input–output analysis. Regulatory pricing decisions are evaluated based on social welfare metrics for economic efficiency and income inequality. The analysis reveals new linkages between climate change mitigation, electricity policy and income distribution. Low-income households can be shielded from mitigation impacts without losses in aggregate welfare to the extent that regulators can recover mitigation costs through industrial price increases. Regulators' flexibility to distribute costs across households is constrained by industrial customers' migration off the grid. Reduced supply interruptions to the rural poor from the resulting demand contraction are a potential co-benefit of mitigation. Distributional impacts, therefore, depend on other electricity policies that are driven by the political economy of the sector.

Microprudential Regulation in a Dynamic Model of Banking

This paper studies the quantitative impact of microprudential bank regulations on bank lending and value metrics of efficiency and welfare in a dynamic model of banks that are financed by debt and equity, undertake maturity transformation, are exposed to credit and liquidity risks, and face financing frictions. We show that: (a) there exists an inverted U–shaped relationship between bank lending, welfare, and capital requirements; (b) liquidity requirements unambiguously reduce lending, efficiency and welfare; and (c) resolution policies contingent on observed capital, such as prompt corrective action, dominate in efficiency and welfare terms (non–contingent) capital and liquidity requirements.

INEQUALITY COMPARISONS IN A MULTI‐PERIOD FRAMEWORK: THE ROLE OF ALTERNATIVE WELFARE METRICS

This paper considers the use of alternative welfare metrics in evaluations of income inequality in a multi‐period context. Using Norwegian longitudinal income data, it is found, as in many studies, that inequality is lower when each individual's annual average income is used as welfare metric, compared with the use of a single‐period accounting framework. However, this result does not necessarily hold when aversion to income fluctuations is introduced. Furthermore, when actual incomes are replaced by expected incomes (conditional on an initial period), using a model of income dynamics, higher values of inequality over longer periods are typically found, although comparisons depend on inequality and variability aversion parameters. The results are strongly influenced by the observed high degree of systematic regression toward the (geometric) mean, combined with a large extent of individual unexpected effects.

The minimum wage and labor market outcomes

In The Minimum Wage and Labor Market Outcomes, Christopher Flinn argues that in assessing the effects of the minimum wage (in the United States and elsewhere), a behavioral framework is invaluable for guiding empirical work and the interpretation of results. Flinn develops a job search and wage bargaining model that is capable of generating labor market outcomes consistent with observed wage and unemployment duration distributions, and also can account for observed changes in employment rates and wages after a minimum wage change. Flinn uses previous studies from the minimum wage literature to demonstrate how his model can be used to rationalize and synthesize the diverse results found in widely varying institutional contexts. He also shows how observed wage distributions from before and after a minimum wage change can be used to determine if the change was welfare-improving. More ambitiously, and perhaps controversially, Flinn proposes the construction and formal estimation of the model using commonly available data; model estimates then enable the researcher to determine directly the welfare effects of observed minimum wage changes. This model can be used to conduct counterfactual policy experiments--even to determine optimal minimum wages under a variety of welfare metrics. The development of the model and the econometric theory underlying its estimation are carefully presented so as to enable readers unfamiliar with the econometrics of point process models and dynamic optimization in continuous time to follow the arguments. Although most of the book focuses on the case where only the unemployed search for jobs in a homogeneous labor market environment, later chapters introduce on-the-job search into the model, and explore its implications for minimum wage policy. The book also contains a chapter describing how individual heterogeneity can be introduced into the search, matching, and bargaining framework.

Decomposing Inequality and Social Welfare Changes: The Use of Alternative Welfare Metrics

This paper presents two 'non-welfarist' approaches and one 'welfarist' approach to decompose changes in inequality and social welfare into three components. We distinguish the contributions of population, tax policy and labour supply behavioural effects. As an illustration, we decompose changes in inequality and in values of a social welfare function in Australia between 2001 and 2006. Inequality is first defined in non-welfarist terms as a function of disposable income: the independent judge places no value on leisure. Then this is modified to allow for evaluations using a weighted geometric mean of disposable income and leisure. This is seen to modify the evaluation of changes in important ways. Furthermore, the results are shown to be quite different from those obtained using a 'welfarist' evaluation in terms of money metric utility, where separate behavioural effects cannot be isolated.

Distributed routing in wireless sensor networks using energy welfare metric

There are several requirements for a routing algorithm in wireless sensor networks. First, it should achieve both energy-efficiency and energy-balancing together, in order to prolong the lifetime of sensor networks. Second, the algorithm should follow a distributed control scheme so that it is applicable to large-scale networks. Third, it needs to be robust to diverse potential event generation patterns. The routing algorithm, MaxEW, designed in this study satisfies such requirements. It adopts the social welfare function from social sciences to compute energy welfare as a goodness measure for energy populations. When each sensor tries to maximize energy welfare of its local society, it collectively leads to globally efficient energy-balancing. This emergent property consequently supports preparedness and hence robustness to diverse event generation patterns. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed routing algorithm through extensive simulation-based experiments, by comparing with other existing algorithms as well as optimal routing solutions.

Horse trials and tribulations: Balancing breeding, performance and welfare metrics

Horse trials and tribulations: Balancing breeding, performance and welfare metrics

Introduction to the special issue on zoo animal welfare

In May 2008, the Chicago Zoological Society's Center for the Science of Animal Welfare (CSAW) held a two-day international workshop designed to establish and foster new connections between zoo animal welfare scientists and welfare scientists in other fields, and to take the first step toward the development of a research agenda for zoo animal welfare science. Such a research agenda by its very nature would need to be highly multi-disciplinary and collaborative. In support of this purpose this article serves as an introduction for a collection of invited papers presented at the workshop. Workshop themes included the investigation of welfare metrics currently used and in development, elucidating gaps and determining needs for zoo welfare research, and gaining a deeper understanding of the value that understanding animals in the wild can bring to zoo animal welfare. Here we discuss some of the most relevant points made at the workshop and describe the seven most salient research needs that were suggested in consensus.

Wage or price-based inflation? Alternative targets in optimal monetary policy rules

In this paper the optimality of a specific variant of monetary policy rules à la Taylor is tested within a general equilibrium monetary model with both nominal and real rigidities. The traditional Taylor rule is amended by the inclusion of the growth rate of nominal wage, or ‘wage inflation’. Nominal rigidities are inserted via quadratic adjustment costs for both prices and wages à la Rotemberg [1982. Sticky prices in the United States. Journal of Political Economy 90, 1187–1211] and Kim [2000. Constructing and estimating a realistic optimizing model of monetary policy. Journal of Monetary Economics 45, 329–359]. Cost of capital adjustment together with a positive steady state inflation rate allow the model to match the main empirical facts about US economy. The model is solved by using a second order approximation around the non-stochastic steady state, as in Kim et al. [2008. Calculating and using second order accurate solutions of discrete time dynamic equilibrium models. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 32 (11), 3397–3414]. The welfare metric is offered by the second order expansion of the utility function conditional to the non-stochastic steady state. The results show that wage inflation targeting is welfare improving when coupled with inflation targeting. Moreover, optimal monetary rules include also a positive coefficient for output targeting, as the need to smooth out quantity adjustments induced by real and nominal rigidities. Similar results occurs when both targets are in expected value one period-ahead. The model shows good in sample and out of sample properties.

Intergenerational Welfare Metrics for Evaluation of Social overhead Capital

The purpose of this study is to build an CGE model in the context of OLG model in order to evaluate optimal policy rules for provision of social overhead capital. The model includes a capital stock both of social overhead and private sections among economical behavior of industry and household, and evaluates economical effects of the two kinds of capital stocks. The model can explain productivity effects of social overhead capital, intergenerational income distribution effect of public loan, and substitutability between public service and social overhead capital. Empirical simulation based on macroeconomical data reveals the relationship between policy changes and social welfares, and the relationship between change of social economical conditions and optimal policy rule.