Would banning exports of cages be a net positive for animals, or would it make transitioning to cage-free in high income countries so much more expensive, with developing countries still able to buy new cages, such that it would be negative for animals?
I wonder whether Animal Policy International should consider bundling bans of equipment that would be used to produce animal products that don’t meet local standards in with the import bans they’re campaigning for.
Or buyback programs, in some cases, under which the cages would be recycled or destroyed.
We’ve decided as a society to grandfather a lot of stuff that isn’t up to current standards for the rest of the stuff’s useful life. For instance, I’m generally allowed to continue using older buildings that don’t meet accessibility standards . . . but if I significantly update the building or build a new one, I have to meet current standards. Grandfathering is often relatively uncontroversial, as it can be justified on both fairness and rule-utilitarian grounds.
In a circumstance where you don’t want to grandfather, there’s going to be a deadweight loss someone has to bear. I’d characterize allowing cage export as the equivalent of partial grandfathering—the prior owners only recoup a portion, but only a portion, of the remaining value of their capital investment. I don’t know much about intercontinential shipping or customs, but I imagine the companies selling the cages after the ban are making significantly less than is being charged for them in Africa.
Farmers are a powerful lobby in many countries, and farming is often a low-margin business. Moreover, to the extent individual farmers would be bearing the deadweight loss, they are often in lots of debt and are generally sympathetic to the general public. So a ban on export is likely to be politically difficult and/or require a longer transition period.
If all that is correct, it might be better in some cases to couple an export ban with a publicly-funded buyback program that paid as much as the previous owners could have counterfactually received from the third-party market. This is only true if you think the export ban would have a counterfactual impact on the number of cages in use (which may depend on possible alternative locations and transit costs).
Would banning exports of cages be a net positive for animals, or would it make transitioning to cage-free in high income countries so much more expensive, with developing countries still able to buy new cages, such that it would be negative for animals?
I wonder whether Animal Policy International should consider bundling bans of equipment that would be used to produce animal products that don’t meet local standards in with the import bans they’re campaigning for.
Or buyback programs, in some cases, under which the cages would be recycled or destroyed.
We’ve decided as a society to grandfather a lot of stuff that isn’t up to current standards for the rest of the stuff’s useful life. For instance, I’m generally allowed to continue using older buildings that don’t meet accessibility standards . . . but if I significantly update the building or build a new one, I have to meet current standards. Grandfathering is often relatively uncontroversial, as it can be justified on both fairness and rule-utilitarian grounds.
In a circumstance where you don’t want to grandfather, there’s going to be a deadweight loss someone has to bear. I’d characterize allowing cage export as the equivalent of partial grandfathering—the prior owners only recoup a portion, but only a portion, of the remaining value of their capital investment. I don’t know much about intercontinential shipping or customs, but I imagine the companies selling the cages after the ban are making significantly less than is being charged for them in Africa.
Farmers are a powerful lobby in many countries, and farming is often a low-margin business. Moreover, to the extent individual farmers would be bearing the deadweight loss, they are often in lots of debt and are generally sympathetic to the general public. So a ban on export is likely to be politically difficult and/or require a longer transition period.
If all that is correct, it might be better in some cases to couple an export ban with a publicly-funded buyback program that paid as much as the previous owners could have counterfactually received from the third-party market. This is only true if you think the export ban would have a counterfactual impact on the number of cages in use (which may depend on possible alternative locations and transit costs).