The views expressed here are my own, not those of my employers or people who provided feedback.
Summary
- The number of cage-free commitments is a very rough proxy for the benefits of organisations advocating for them (the size of the population of hens impacted would be a better one), and the number of these organisations is a very rough proxy for their spending. So the additional commitments per extra organisation is a very rough proxy for their cost-effectiveness.
- The extent to which one can infer causality from the results is unclear to me. This caveat aside, holding egg production constant, the number of all cage-free commitments across countries:
- Globally, increases with the number of bad-cop/good-cop organisations, and more so with bad-cop ones. This suggests creating new organisations, especially bad-cop ones, results in more commitments.
- In Asia/Europe, increases with the number of bad-cop/good-cop organisations, and more so with good-cop ones. This suggests creating new organisations there, especially good-cop ones, results in more commitments.
- In Latin America, decreases with the number of bad-cop organisations, and increases with the number of good-cop ones. This suggests creating new bad-cop organisations there results in less commitments, and new good-cop ones in more.
- The above conclusions often do not hold for global, regional or national commitments.
Introduction
I investigate the relationship between:
- The number of all, global, regional, and national cage-free commitments.
- The number of bad- and good-cop organisations, and egg production by country.
The number of cage-free commitments is a very rough proxy for the benefits of organisations advocating for them (the size of the population of hens impacted would be a better one), and the number of these organisations is a very rough proxy for their spending. So the additional commitments per extra organisation is a very rough proxy for their cost-effectiveness.
Methods
I run cross-country linear regressions of the number of all, global, regional, and national cage-free commitments achieved until June 2023 on the egg production in the last year for which there is data (2017 to 2022), bad-cop organisations in June 2023, and good-cop organisations in June 2023. I used estimates from Vicky Cox, senior animal welfare research manager at Ambitious Impact (AIM), for the number of cage-free commitments and organisations advocating for them. The former is based on data from Chicken Watch in June 2023, and the latter on talking with relevant organisations, such as members from the Open Wing Alliance (OWA) and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF).
I analyse 8 sets of countries. Ones in all regions, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, and Oceania.
Results
There is data for 43 countries, 1 in Africa, 12 in Asia, 21 in Europe, 7 in Latin America, and 2 in North America. I do not present results for Africa, Middle East, North America, and Oceania because each regression requires at least 4 data points.
A slope with respect to bad-cop/good-cop organisations of 1 would mean each extra bad-cop/good-cop organisation is associated with 1 additional commitment holding egg production constant.
All commitments
| Countries in… | Slope with respect to bad-cop organisations | Slope with respect to good-cop organisations | Ratio between the slopes with respect to bad- and good-cop organisations | Slope with respect to the egg production (1/t) | Intercept | Coefficient of determination |
| All regions | 64.0 | 24.2 | 2.64 | -1.33*10^-7 | 1.07 | 51.0 % |
| Asia | 7.84 | 14.5 | 0.539 | 1.69*10^-8 | 26.5 | 28.6 % |
| Europe | 25.5 | 50.5 | 0.505 | -7.00*10^-6 | 41.4 | 60.1 % |
| Latin America | -6.13 | 23.0 | -0.267 | 3.37*10^-5 | 24.2 | 94.8 % |
Global commitments
| Countries in… | Slope with respect to bad-cop organisations | Slope with respect to good-cop organisations | Ratio between the slopes with respect to bad- and good-cop organisations | Slope with respect to the egg production (1/t) | Intercept | Coefficient of determination |
| All regions | 14.2 | 7.56 | 1.88 | 6.95*10^-7 | 22.1 | 52.9 % |
| Asia | 2.32 | 9.27 | 0.250 | 3.71*10^-7 | 24.8 | 52.4 % |
| Europe | 20.3 | 8.63 | 2.35 | 7.01*10^-6 | 12.0 | 68.7 % |
| Latin America | 7.32 | -1.48 | -4.95 | 3.86*10^-6 | 37.8 | 71.8 % |
Regional commitments
| Countries in… | Slope with respect to bad-cop organisations | Slope with respect to good-cop organisations | Ratio between the slopes with respect to bad- and good-cop organisations | Slope with respect to the egg production (1/t) | Intercept | Coefficient of determination |
| All regions | 7.34 | 0.156 | 47.1 | -9.23*10^-8 | 5.70 | 37.2 % |
| Asia | -0.562 | -0.623 | 0.902 | 1.83*10^-7 | 3.69 | 36.6 % |
| Europe | 1.52 | 5.23 | 0.291 | -1.96*10^-6 | 12.4 | 30.2 % |
| Latin America | -8.71 | -0.242 | 36.0 | 7.78*10^-6 | 21.3 | 47.9 % |
National commitments
| Countries in… | Slope with respect to bad-cop organisations | Slope with respect to good-cop organisations | Ratio between the slopes with respect to bad- and good-cop organisations | Slope with respect to the egg production (1/t) | Intercept | Coefficient of determination |
| All regions | 42.5 | 16.5 | 2.58 | -7.35*10^-7 | -26.7 | 41.3 % |
| Asia | 6.08 | 5.88 | 1.03 | -5.37*10^-7 | -2.00 | 10.3 % |
| Europe | 3.70 | 36.7 | 0.101 | -1.20*10^-5 | 17.0 | 47.3 % |
| Latin America | -4.74 | 24.7 | -0.192 | 2.20*10^-5 | -34.8 | 82.9 % |
Discussion
The results of the regressions have to be interpreted in light of their fit to the data, and would be better assessed by calculating the p-values for the null hypotheses that each of the slopes is 0. The extent to which one can infer causality from the results is unclear to me. This caveat aside, holding egg production constant, the number of all cage-free commitments across countries:
- Globally, increases with the number of bad-cop/good-cop organisations, and more so with bad-cop ones. This suggests creating new organisations, especially bad-cop ones, results in more commitments.
- In Asia/Europe, increases with the number of bad-cop/good-cop organisations, and more so with good-cop ones. This suggests creating new organisations there, especially good-cop ones, results in more commitments.
- In Latin America, decreases with the number of bad-cop organisations, and increases with the number of good-cop ones. This suggests creating new bad-cop organisations there results in less commitments, and new good-cop ones in more.
The above conclusions often do not hold for global, regional or national commitments.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Vicky Cox for feedback on the draft.