It is reasonable to say that Adam Smith (1776) has played an important role in the development of welfare theory. The reasons are at least two. In the first place, he created the invisible hand idea that is one of the most fundamental equilibrating relations in Economic Theory; the equalization of rates of returns as enforced by a tendency of factors to move from low to high returns through the...

Animal agriculture in North America has undergone a revolution since World War II. Productivity has increased enormously through the use of animal confinement, genetic selection, scientific feed formulation, and productivity-enhancing pharmaceuticals. There has been a shift to larger production units taking advantage of economies of scale. Critics contend that these changes have reduced the wel...

Our great-ape relatives are some of the most endangered species on the planet and gorillas are no exception. Taxonomists are not quite agreed on the status of some gorilla populations in central Africa but one group, the Cross River gorilla in Nigeria, is thought to be one of the most critically endangered species worldwide with an estimate of only around 150 individuals remaining. Its neighbou...

generally. j j Social Welfare, like Social Medicine, will fix its own standards, have its own objectives and develop its own techniques *n achieving the objectives. It cannot follow the Western standards, objectives and techniques. Asia in general and India in particular have an outlook different from the outlook of European cultures. It is different but not inferior by any means. The general i...

Recent revisions to international legislation and guidelines on the care and use of animals in research and testing emphasise the importance of minimising suffering and improving welfare. Achieving this requires effective systems for recognising, recording, analysing and assessing animal behaviour, in order to identify relevant indicators of pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm so that any...

For both scientific and animal welfare reasons, training in basic surgical concepts and techniques should be undertaken before ever seeking to perform surgery on a rodent. Students, post-doctoral scholars, and others interested in performing surgery on rodents as part of a research protocol may not have had formal surgical training as part of their required coursework. Surgery itself is a techn...

We introduce a noncooperative multilateral bargaining model for a network-restricted environment, in which players can communicate only with their neighbors. Each player strategically chooses the bargaining partners among the neighbors to buy out their communication links with upfront transfers. The main theorem characterizes a condition on network structures for efficient equilibria and shows ...

The European Commission is planning to put forward drafts for a new chemicals legislation by June 2002. In fulfillment of an Environmental Council Conclusion, Working Groups have been set up for consultation during the ongoing preparatory stage. There, members of the General Directorates Environment and Enterprise discuss relevant topics with representatives from authorities, industry, environm...

Initiatives certifying that farms and firms adhere to predefined environmental and social welfare production standards are increasingly popular. According to proponents, they create financial incentives for farms and firms to improve their environmental and socioeconomic performance. This paper reviews the evidence on whether sustainable certification of agricultural commodities and tourism ope...