(Strongly upvoted and bookmarked for future reference)
For how many years do reforms have an impact?
One of the most uncertain parameter in all estimates is “years of impact”. …
You’ve probably seen zdgroff’s analysis, but just in case, would it have helped? He used a regression discontinuity design approach to analyse 800+ state policies that were the subjects of close referendums in U.S. states since 1900 and estimated that “passing a referendum increases the chance a policy is operative 20, 40, or even 100 years later by over 40 percentage points”, and found similar policy persistence “for a range of institutional environments, cultures, and topics”. Notably, he said, the hazard rate is much lower in later years (chart below).
My own main reservation about using zdgroff’s result, aside from Poland’s policy persistence possibly being different from that of the US, is that the future seems very uncertain generally, so I’m just unsure graphs like zdgroff’s will remain true going forward. So in your shoes I would’ve probably done a simple threshold analysis resulting in a series of hopefully decision-informing statements like (making up numbers) “we estimate Anima’s stop the farms work to be more cost-effective than [standard benchmark] if production takes longer than 1.2 years to increase elsewhere to meet demand”, where [standard benchmark] is the FAW equivalent of cash transfers or something (maybe AIM’s cage-free work in the Middle East?), and then contextualise by mentioning how this could take anywhere from a week to 20 years, affected by factors XYZ some of which may be affectable inputs into strategy. Not as simple as a single-number estimate unfortunately, but hopefully more informative?
It’s also not even certain that some of these programs do more good than harm to animals.
Stop The Farms campaign could be just moving animal production to countries where improving animal welfare could be even more challenging. If a chicken farm is blocked in Poland, another farm might be built in, say, Romania to meet the same demand—potentially with even lower welfare for chickens.
I don’t have anything useful to say unfortunately, except that this has also been on my mind since Joseph asked a conceptually analogous question in a different context (“Should we consider this an example of economic growth? Is this just shifting spending/consumption from one place to another?”). So input on how to better think about this sort of “potential offset effect” seems useful, albeit probably heavily domain-specific so not that generalisable.
I’m aware of zdgroff’s analysis. In the context of my analysis, I guess it would inform how long the ban of fur farming in Poland might last. But the possibility of fur farming being banned in Poland and then the ban being lifted some years later hadn’t even occurred to me. I am much more worried about production moving to other countries to meet the same demand, as this has happened before. I imagine that investors into fur farming would choose to build farms in one of the many countries that allow fur farming, rather than lobby a country like Poland to rescind its ban.
Actually, it is also relevant for a possible EU cage-free ban. I can imagine that ban being rescinded. I don’t think this consideration would affect the results of my estimate much, though it does complicate thinking about how many years impact lasts a little bit.
(Strongly upvoted and bookmarked for future reference)
You’ve probably seen zdgroff’s analysis, but just in case, would it have helped? He used a regression discontinuity design approach to analyse 800+ state policies that were the subjects of close referendums in U.S. states since 1900 and estimated that “passing a referendum increases the chance a policy is operative 20, 40, or even 100 years later by over 40 percentage points”, and found similar policy persistence “for a range of institutional environments, cultures, and topics”. Notably, he said, the hazard rate is much lower in later years (chart below).
My own main reservation about using zdgroff’s result, aside from Poland’s policy persistence possibly being different from that of the US, is that the future seems very uncertain generally, so I’m just unsure graphs like zdgroff’s will remain true going forward. So in your shoes I would’ve probably done a simple threshold analysis resulting in a series of hopefully decision-informing statements like (making up numbers) “we estimate Anima’s stop the farms work to be more cost-effective than [standard benchmark] if production takes longer than 1.2 years to increase elsewhere to meet demand”, where [standard benchmark] is the FAW equivalent of cash transfers or something (maybe AIM’s cage-free work in the Middle East?), and then contextualise by mentioning how this could take anywhere from a week to 20 years, affected by factors XYZ some of which may be affectable inputs into strategy. Not as simple as a single-number estimate unfortunately, but hopefully more informative?
I don’t have anything useful to say unfortunately, except that this has also been on my mind since Joseph asked a conceptually analogous question in a different context (“Should we consider this an example of economic growth? Is this just shifting spending/consumption from one place to another?”). So input on how to better think about this sort of “potential offset effect” seems useful, albeit probably heavily domain-specific so not that generalisable.
Thank you for an interesting comment.
I’m aware of zdgroff’s analysis. In the context of my analysis, I guess it would inform how long the ban of fur farming in Poland might last. But the possibility of fur farming being banned in Poland and then the ban being lifted some years later hadn’t even occurred to me. I am much more worried about production moving to other countries to meet the same demand, as this has happened before. I imagine that investors into fur farming would choose to build farms in one of the many countries that allow fur farming, rather than lobby a country like Poland to rescind its ban.
Actually, it is also relevant for a possible EU cage-free ban. I can imagine that ban being rescinded. I don’t think this consideration would affect the results of my estimate much, though it does complicate thinking about how many years impact lasts a little bit.