Animal welfare levy - an academic paper

I thought some people might be interested to see this academic paper, about an idea for an animal welfare levy: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KaqiPpvpJTHvlFMwO0O8dNGNyYfdZZIh/view

The Animal-Welfare Levy
Romain Espinosa and Nicolas Treich

March 27, 2024

Abstract

We provide a non-anthropocentric rationale for implementing a levy on meat
consumption due to animal-welfare considerations. It operates as a Pigouvian
tax and addresses externalities on farmed animals. Under total utilitarianism,
the levy is a subsidy when an animal’s life is worth living, and a tax when it is
not. Under average utilitarianism, it is always a tax when human welfare exceeds
animal welfare. Even under conservative assumptions, calibrated tax levels are
substantial and would make most-intensive animal farms unprofitable. Taxes are
significantly higher for chickens and pigs than for cows, in contrast to the taxation
of other meat externalities.

Website of one of the authors, Nicolas Treich: https://www.nicolastreich.com/

He recently presented on this at the Defund Meat conference: https://www.mpil.de/en/pub/news/conferences-workshops/defund-meat.cfm