Contingent valuation of the perceived benefits of farm animal welfare legislation: An exploratory survey

There has been increasing policy debate about farm animal welfare and the need for further legislation in the UK, European Union and more recently, the USA. However, there is a need for information on the extent to which citizens would wish to support legislative developments intended to improve the welfare of farm animals. The paper described a survey which explores the application of contingent valuation to animal welfare issues by eliciting people's willingness to pay to support specific farm animal welfare legislation. The findings suggest that contingent valuation may be applied to such animal welfare issues but that studies need to formally address the associated problems of embeddedness, purchase of moral satisfaction and failure of respondents to adequately consider substitute and complementary goods, and their potential effect of overstating willingness to pay.