This article highlights some key areas where economics can contribute to the current debate about animal welfare. Production economics reveals that producers will not maximize animal welfare, even if animal well-being is highly correlated with output. Welfare economics raises thorny issues about...

On March 7, 2012, ABC News aired a report on the use of lean, finely textured beef (LFTB), or “pink slime” as its reporters dubbed it. Although this was not the first time LFTB had been the subject of negative criticism on a national scale, the attention is no longer just coming from...