EA - Social science research on animal welfare we'd like to see by Martin Gould

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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Social science research on animal welfare we'd like to see, published by Martin Gould on January 12, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Context and objectivesThis is a list of social science research topics related to animal welfare, developed by researchers on the Open Phil farm animal welfare team.We compiled this list because people often ask us for suggestions on topics that would be valuable to research. The primary audience for this document is students (undergrad, grad, high school) and researchers without significant budgets (since the topics we list here could potentially be answered using primarily desktop research).[1]Additional context:We are not offering to fund research on these topics, and we are not necessarily offering to review or advise research on these topics.In the interest of brevity, we have not provided much context for each topic. But if you are a PhD student or academic, we may be able to provide you with more detail on our motivation and our interpretation of the current literature: please email Martin Gould with your questions.The topics covered in this document are the ones we find most interesting; for other animal advocacy topic lists see here. Note that we do not attempt to cover animal welfare science in these topics, and that the topics are listed in no particular order (i.e. we don't place a higher priority on the topics listed first).In some areas, we are not fully up to date on the existing literature, so some of our questions may have been answered by research already conducted.We think it is generally valuable to use back-of-the-envelope-calculations to explore ideas and findings.If you complete research on these topics, please feel free to share it with us (email below) and with the broader animal advocacy movement (one option is to post here). We're happy to see published findings, working papers, and even detailed notes that you don't intend to formally publish.If you have anything to share or any feedback, please email Martin Gould. This post is also on the Open Phil blog here.TopicsCorporate commitmentsBy how many years do animal welfare corporate commitments speed up reforms that might eventually happen anyway due to factors like government policy, individual consumer choices, or broad moral change?How does this differ by the type of reform? (For example, cage-free vs. Better Chicken Commitment?)How does this differ by country or geographical region (For example, the EU vs. Brazil?)What are the production costs associated with specific animal welfare reforms? Here is an example of such an analysis for the European Chicken Commitment.Policy reformWhat are the jurisdictions most amenable to FAW policy reform over the next 5-10 years? What specific reform(s) are most tractable, and why?To what extent is animal welfare an issue that is politically polarizing (i.e. clearly associated with a particular political affiliation)? Is this a barrier to reform? If so, how might political polarization of animal welfare be reduced?How do corporate campaigns and policy reform interact with and potentially reinforce each other?What conclusions should be drawn about the optimal timing of policy reform campaigns?What would be the cost-effectiveness of a global animal welfare benchmarking project? (That is, comparing farm animal welfare by country and by company, as a basis to drive competition, as with similar models in human rights and global development.)Which international institutions (e.g. World Bank, WTO, IMF, World Organisation for Animal Health, UN agencies) have the most influence over animal welfare policy in emerging economies? What are the most promising ways to influence these institutions?Does this vary by geographical region (for example, Asia vs. Latin America)?Alt proteinWhat % of PBMA (plant-ba...