The Elephant in the room: For an economic analysis of plant-based diets and animal welfare

L'éléphant dans la pièce: Pour une approche économique de l'alimentation végétale et de la condition animale

Romain Espinosa

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Abstract: This article discusses plant-based diets and animal welfare as objects of study for economic theory. It answers three questions: Why should economists be interested in the consumption of animal-based products? What contribution can the economic theory make to existing academic discussions? What reasons may explain the lack of interest previously shown by economists to this problem? This work first sets out three arguments for which economic science should take into account the consumption of animal-based products: an environmental reason, a sanitary reason, and an ethical reason. Then, it presents the behavioral analysis of meat consumption developed in psychology and discusses how the economic theory could contribute to this field of research (behavioral economics, public economics, industrial economics, and political economy). The last section investigates why economists have shown so far very little interest in these questions.

Keywords: animal studies; veganomics; condition animale; Alimentation végétale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-hme
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02065781
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Published in Revue d'économie politique, 2019, 129 (3), pp.287-324. ⟨10.3917/redp.293.0287⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02065781

DOI: 10.3917/redp.293.0287

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