Recently, I began eating vegetarian. I was motivated both by a utilitarian desire to decrease animal suffering, and by a non-utilitarian desire to live more in accordance with my values. (So, in particular, I don’t think the answer to this question will strongly affect my decision to eat/not eat meat.)
A friend objected to the idea that eating vegetarian resulted in less suffering for animals. He reasoned that economics says a drop in demand for some commodity should cause prices to fall for that commodity, and overall consumption remains the same. (Non-vegetarians would just buy more meat.)
I was surprised by this line of reasoning and hadn’t thought of it before. (By contrast, I am familiar with the question “does my not purchasing chicken really cause the supermarket to order less chicken?” and am comfortable with the answer discussed e.g. in https://reducing-suffering.org/does-vegetarianism-make-a-difference/).
The ACE article links to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iNDQIt9MRD4r1ws5M_2hQ-MNjMY-bcUra0fpOmF4Am0/edit#gid=0 which gives an estimate for the cumulative elasticity of chicken as between 0.06 and 0.7. But the article I got it from has a big disclaimer at the top: “We do not feel that this report is up to our current standards.” This, and the wide range, make me want to see other sources of data.
I’d like to know:
- Am I going about answering my friend’s question correctly?
- If I am, has any other work been done on estimating the cumulative elasticity of (say) chicken? How is such research done?
What is the current best estimate of the cumulative elasticity of chicken?
EDIT: I corresponded with Brian Tomasik directly, and the best answer I now have for this question is “If someone gives up 1 lb of chicken, total consumption falls by 0.76lb in expectation.” The source is a book by an agriculture professor. See https://reducing-suffering.org/comments-on-compassion-by-the-pound/#Elasticities
Recently, I began eating vegetarian. I was motivated both by a utilitarian desire to decrease animal suffering, and by a non-utilitarian desire to live more in accordance with my values. (So, in particular, I don’t think the answer to this question will strongly affect my decision to eat/not eat meat.)
A friend objected to the idea that eating vegetarian resulted in less suffering for animals. He reasoned that economics says a drop in demand for some commodity should cause prices to fall for that commodity, and overall consumption remains the same. (Non-vegetarians would just buy more meat.)
I was surprised by this line of reasoning and hadn’t thought of it before. (By contrast, I am familiar with the question “does my not purchasing chicken really cause the supermarket to order less chicken?” and am comfortable with the answer discussed e.g. in https://reducing-suffering.org/does-vegetarianism-make-a-difference/).
I did some research and learned the term “cumulative elasticity” from https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/dietary-impacts/effects-of-diet-choices/ (although is this the term of art? I can’t find many other hits when Googling.) When you abstain from buying X kg of chicken, total supply of chicken goes down by X kg * cumulative elasticity.
The ACE article links to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iNDQIt9MRD4r1ws5M_2hQ-MNjMY-bcUra0fpOmF4Am0/edit#gid=0 which gives an estimate for the cumulative elasticity of chicken as between 0.06 and 0.7. But the article I got it from has a big disclaimer at the top: “We do not feel that this report is up to our current standards.” This, and the wide range, make me want to see other sources of data.
I’d like to know:
- Am I going about answering my friend’s question correctly?
- If I am, has any other work been done on estimating the cumulative elasticity of (say) chicken? How is such research done?