Files
Abstract
Animal welfare concerns are having dramatic impacts on food and livestock markets. Here we
examine consumer preferences for pork products with a focus on use of gestation crates. We
examine underlying consumer valuations of pork attributes while considering preference heterogeneity
as well as voluntary and legislative alternatives in producing gestation crate-free
pork. Our results suggest that prohibiting swine producers from using gestation crates fails to
improve consumer welfare in the presence of a labeling scheme documenting voluntary disadoption
of gestation crates. Consumers are found to implicitly associate animal welfare attributes
with smaller farms. Preference heterogeneity drives notably diverse consumer welfare
impacts when pork produced with use of gestation crates is no longer available for consumption.