"To strive for economic and social justice": welfare, sexuality, and party politics in San Francisco in the 1960s

This article explores how liberal politicians like Phil Burton of San Francisco joined with welfare rights lobbyists and bureaucrats to embrace late twntieth-century notions of sexual equality through a broader reconception of economic equality brought about by the expansion of the California welfare state in the early 1960s.

Estimating the benefits of farm animal welfare legislation using the contingent valuation method

This paper presents the method and findings of a contingent valuation (CV) study that aimed to elicit United Kingdom citizens' willingness to pay to support legislation to phase out the use of battery cages for egg production in the European Union (EU). The method takes account of various biases associated with the CV technique, including 'warm glow', 'part-whole' and sample response biases. Estimated mean willingness to pay to support the legislation is used to estimate the annual benefit of the legislation to UK citizens. This is compared with the estimated annual costs of the legislation over a 12-year period, which allows for readjustment by the UK egg industry. The analysis shows that the estimated benefits of the legislation outweigh the costs. The study demonstrates that CV is a potentially useful technique for assessing the likely benefits associated with proposed legislation. However, estimates of CV studies must be treated with caution. It is important that they are derived from carefully designed surveys and that the willingness to pay estimation method allows for various biases. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessment of the impact of government animal welfare policy on farm animal welfare in the UK

The paper presents the method and findings of a Delphi expert survey to assess the impact of UK government farm animal welfare policy, form assurance schemes and major food retailer specifications on the welfare of animals on forms. Two case-study livestock production systems are considered, dairy and cage egg production. The method identifies how well the various standards perform in terms of their effects on a number of key farm animal welfare variables, and provides estimates of the impact of the three types of standard on the welfare of animals on forms, taking account of producer compliance. The study highlights that there remains considerable scope for government policy, together with form assurance schemes, to improve the welfare of form animals by introducing standards that address key factors affecting animal welfare and by increasing compliance of livestock producers. There is a need for more comprehensive, regular and random surveys of on-farm welfare to monitor compliance with welfare standards (legislation and welfare codes) and the welfare of farm animals over time, and a need to collect farm data on the costs of compliance with standards.