Welfare economics is developing frameworks for incorporating animal welfare into cost-benefit analysis and policy decisions, raising fundamental questions about how to value non-human lives.
Welfare economics provides tools for making animal welfare visible in policy decisions where it has historically been excluded. When animal suffering has no formal economic weight, it can be overridden by any monetised human benefit - even trivial ones. Developing credible methods for incorporating animal welfare into cost-benefit analysis does not require resolving all philosophical questions about animal moral status, but does require willingness to attach some non-zero weight to animal suffering. Research into public willingness to pay for animal welfare improvements provides one approach; suffering-based welfare metrics provide another. The policy implications of even modest welfare valuation are significant - it changes the calculus on farming practices, research protocols and wildlife management decisions.