Is animal welfare a central issue for consumers of luxury goods?

The compatibility between luxury and sustainable development has been increasingly examined in recent literature, but a number of ethical issues remain unexplored. One such concern is animal welfare, a recurrent question in the luxury goods sector. This is one of the first research articles to shed light on this subject, utilising two studies, one qualitative and the other quantitative with conjoint analysis, conducted among 12 and 253 French consumers, respectively. The results reveal that consumers are sensitive to the challenge of animal welfare in luxury, but fall into two different groups. Some have a preference for animal‐based raw materials sourced from livestock farms that respect animal welfare, whilst others are more favourable to the use of synthetic raw materials. In particular, the results show that the use of synthetic raw materials is accepted by some consumers but can lead to a reduction in the perceived value of luxury products.     

Understanding the social impacts of enforcement activities on illegal wildlife trade in China

Illegal wildlife trade enforcement is a cornerstone conservation strategy worldwide, yet we have a limited understanding on its social impacts. Using Chinese online wildlife seizure news (2003–2018), we evaluated the interactions among enforcement operations, news frequency, and social engagement (i.e., whistle-blowing) frequency. Our results showed that intensive enforcement operations, which commenced after 2012, have social impacts by increasing the frequency of all seizure news significantly by 28% [95% Confidence Interval (CI): 5%, 51%] and those via whistle-blowing by 24% [95% CI: 2%, 45%], when compared to counterfactual models where possible confounding factors were accounted for. Furthermore, we revealed the potential interaction between enforcement seizure news with and without social engagement, and the consequential social feedback process. Of the species identified from ‘whistle-blowing’ news, up to 28% are considered as high conservation priorities. Overall, we expanded our understanding of the enforcement impacts to social dimensions, which could contribute to improving the cost-effectiveness of such conservation efforts.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01686-9.     

Discounting for personal and social payments: Patience for others,impatience for ourselves

The market rate of return on private investment is often used as the discount rate when conducting cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of public projects. I argue that the decision to invest pits current consumption against future consumption, both of which accumulate to the private decision maker. Public projects, on the other hand, provide benefits that accrue to society in general. To examine the appropriateness of discount rates based on returns to private investment, this paper considers lab experiments designed to test whether individuals discount personal and social benefits at different rates. Personal benefits are captured through personal monetary payments, while social benefits are captured through anonymous donations to charitable organizations. I jointly elicit time and risk preferences and find that subjects discount charitable contributions at significantly lower rates than personal payments.