The Animal-Welfare Levy

Romain Espinosa () and Nicolas Treich
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Romain Espinosa: CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Nicolas Treich: TSE-R - TSE-R Toulouse School of Economics – Recherche - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: We provide a nonanthropocentric rationale for implementing a levy on meat consumption due to animal-welfare considerations. It operates as a Pigouvian tax and addresses externalities on farmed animals. Under total utilitarianism, the levy is a subsidy when an animal's life is worth living, and a tax when it is not. The levy varies under alternative normative settings, illustrating the importance of population-ethics issues for the pricing of externalities in this context. Even under conservative assumptions, calibrated tax levels are substantial and would make most intensive animal farms unprofitable. Taxes are significantly higher for chickens and pigs than for cows, in contrast to the taxation of other meat externalities.

Date: 2025-12-18
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Published in Journal of the European Economic Association, 2025, ⟨10.1093/jeea/jvaf063⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05654849

DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvaf063

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