The making of a (dog) movie star: The effect of the portrayal of dogs in movies on breed registrations in the United States

The media is a powerful force that can affect the welfare of the domiciled dog population. Dogs have long been in human stories and their depictions can create demand for the breeds shown. While previous research has found that this effect can last for up to ten years after the release of a movie, how this phenomenon occurs is unknown. This paper examines if how a dog is portrayed in a movie is associated with a subsequent change in American Kennel Club breed registrations for that breed. Following a systematic literature review, four key themes were identified in how dogs are portrayed in the media; dogs portrayed as heroes, as anthropomorphised, as embodying the ideals of Western societies (Whiteness and heteronormativity) and as boundaries between wilderness and human society. Forty movies from between 1930 to 2004 were analysed, resulting in 95 dog characters scored, and hierarchical multiple linear regression was run. Movies with dogs portrayed as heroes were followed by significant increases in the number of American Kennel Club breed registrations for the breed shown, while anthropomorphised dogs were followed by significant decreases in the number of dogs registered for up to five years after a movie’s release. These results indicate that how dogs are portrayed may be an important driver of demand for breeds. Future work should investigate whether these portrayals may have negative welfare implications for real dogs by leading to owners having unrealistic expectations for dogs or increasing demand for dogs with in-breeding related disorders.

Conclusion

This chapter concludes by considering the broader welfare implications of city lobbying. The ability to pay for professional advocacy represents a double-edged sword for cities. Lobbying provides an essential tool for local leaders seeking to amplify their voices in the complicated and often hostile world of state politics. This is true for progressive urban areas—but also for high-income suburbs. However, while some states have recently debated measures to restrict local government lobbying, this chapter concludes that these efforts would likely do more harm than good in the absence of reform to the lobbying industry more generally. Otherwise, the influence of corporations and PACs will continue to grow, while local officials would unfairly lose one of the key channels through which they are able to advocate for local interests in state politics.

Poverty alleviation and state building in peripheral areas: evidence from China

The literature suggests that the distributive allocations of local public goods help politicians secure support and thus contribute to political survival. We argue that the selective assignment of state-led infrastructure projects can bolster political control in peripheral areas by inducing the government's investment in essential administrative and security apparatus for project implementation and long-term state building. Drawing on a unique county-level dataset, we study the effects of poverty alleviation transfers in Xinjiang. We find that poverty alleviation was associated with significant increases in government spending on public management and security. In contrast, these alleviation transfers had a small and ambiguous effect on increasing agricultural production and reducing ethnic violence in the province. Our findings highlight the importance of comparing the capacity and welfare implications of distributive politics, as fiscal subsidies may change the actions of the leader's local agents more than altering the behaviors and attitudes of those who may benefit from these transfers.

A quantitative study on crowdfunders' motivations, their sense of meaning and social welfare

PurposeIn recent years, crowdfunding has developed as a new fundraising alternative. Yet, the effects of the backing experience in reward and donation-based crowdfunding (DBCF) on well-being were researched only through qualitative practices. The current study offers a novel quantitative inquiry of the association between backing motivation and backers' well-being.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a uniform questionnaire distributed among 700 Israeli adults, which included questions about backing experience, sense of meaning and social welfare.FindingsThe results indicate that only intrinsic backing motivation is associated with the sense of meaning in life. Non-investment crowdfunding offers a platform for people who are intrinsically motivated to increase their sense of meaning in life. Moreover, the authors find that the tendency to back further projects is associated with backers' sense of meaning in life.Social implicationsThe findings can promote a better matching between backers' desire for living the good life and entrepreneurs' desire to reach their funding targets. Social welfare implications are discussed.Originality/valueThe linkage between backers' well-being and crowdfunding has not been explored in quantitative studies. Hence, the study offers a novel approach and some new insights on this linkage.

Space and Species Interactions in Welfare Estimates for Invasive Species Policy

Aquatic invasive species (AIS) can cause catastrophic damages to lake ecosystems. Bigheaded carp are one such species that pose a current threat to Lake Michigan. Bigheaded carp are expected to have spatially differentiated impacts on other aquatic species in the metapopulation. Policymakers must decide how much to invest in mitigation or conservation policies, if at all, by understanding how invasions impact social welfare or social wellbeing. Estimates of social welfare implications, however, may be biased if important interactions between species and space are overly simplified or aggregated out of the model. In this analysis, a bioeconomic model that links an ecological model with an economic model of recreational fishing behavior is used to complete a comparative analysis of the social welfare implications across several different ecological specifications to demonstrate what biases exist if species interactions are neglected or if ecological characteristics are assumed to be homogenous across space. Results of the bigheaded carp case study suggest that social welfare losses from the invasion vary substantially if species interactions are excluded and vary less if space is treated homogeneously.

The Welfare Impact of Targeted Advertising Technologies

We analyze the welfare implications of consumer data sharing, and restrictions to that sharing, in the context of online targeted advertising. Targeting technologies offer firms the ability to reach desired audiences through intermediary platforms. The platforms run auctions in real time to display ads on internet sites, leveraging consumers’ personal information collected online to personalize the ads. The online advertising industry posits that targeted advertising benefits advertising firms (that is, merchants who want to target ads to the desired consumers), consumers who see ads for preferred products, and the intermediary platforms that match consumers with firms. However, the claims that targeted advertising benefits all players involved have not been fully vetted in the literature. We develop an analytical model to analyze the economic and welfare implications of targeting technologies for those three players under alternative consumer information regimes. The regimes differ in the type and amount of consumer data available to the intermediary and to the advertising firms, and reflect the presence or absence of technological or regulatory restrictions to personal information flows. We find evidence of incentive misalignment among the players, as the intermediary prefers to share only a subset of consumer information with firms, whereas advertising firms prefer having complete information about the consumers. As such, a strategic intermediary with the ability to control which information is shared during the auction can have an incentive to use only the information that maximizes its payoff, overlooking the interests of both advertising firms and consumers. The information regimes that maximize consumer welfare vastly differ depending on consumers’ heterogeneity along two dimensions: a horizontal dimension, capturing consumer’s heterogeneity in product preferences; and a vertical dimension, capturing consumers’ heterogeneity in purchase power. Consumers prefer none of their personal information to be used for targeting only in limited circumstances. Otherwise, consumers are either indifferent or prefer only specific types of information to be used for targeting.

Dogs are more pessimistic if their owners use two or more aversive training methods

Domestic dogs are trained using a range of different methods, broadly categorised as reward based (positive reinforcement/negative punishment) and aversive based (positive punishment/negative reinforcement). Previous research has suggested associations between use of positive punishment-based techniques and undesired behaviours, but there is little research investigating the relative welfare consequences of these different approaches. This study used a judgement bias task to compare the underlying mood state of dogs whose owners reported using two or more positive punishment/negative reinforcement based techniques, with those trained using only positive reinforcement/negative punishment in a matched pair study design. Dogs were trained to discriminate between rewarded and unrewarded locations equidistant from a start box, and mean latencies recorded. Their subsequent latency to intermediate ‘ambiguous’ locations was recorded as an indication of whether these were perceived as likely to contain food or not. Dogs trained using aversive methods were slower to all ambiguous locations. This difference was significant for latency to the middle (Wilcoxon Z = − 2.380, P = 0.017), and near positive (Wilcoxon Z = − 2.447, P = 0.014) locations, suggesting that dogs trained using coercive methods may have a more negative mood state, and hence that there are welfare implications of training dogs using such methods.

Drivers of exit and outcomes for Thoroughbred racehorses participating in the 2017–2018 Australian racing season

The destinations of Thoroughbred (TB) racehorses exiting the racing industry is a high-profile issue with ethical and welfare implications of interest to both animal welfare groups and racing regulators. This cross-sectional study investigated the reasons that TBs temporarily or permanently exited racing and training in Australia in the 2017–2018 racing season and the outcomes for these horses post-racing. An online questionnaire was sent to the last registered trainers of a representative sample of 2,509 ‘inactive’ TBs. Inactive horses were defined as those horses that were recorded as ‘active’ but had not trialled or raced in the last 6 months of the racing season or had an inactive status recorded in the Racing Australia database. Of the 1,750 responses received, the largest group of inactive TBs had permanently exited the racing industry (45% retired, 5.3% deceased). A relatively large group exited racing temporarily (43%) but participated in the racing industry in the following season. The reasons for retirement were predominantly voluntary, such as poor performance or owner’s request. Almost one third of retirements were due to injuries with tendon or ligament problems the most frequently conditions listed. The median age at retirement was five (Q1 4; Q3 7) years. Extrapolation of the survey results to the population of horses racing or training in Australia in 2017–2018 (n = 37,750) show that that 17% of the population retire each year and 2.1% die. These estimates provide benchmarks for industry and animal welfare organisations to resource and measure the effectiveness of interventions.

Welfare implications of mitigating investment uncertainty

This study explores the welfare implications of mitigating investment uncertainty in the context of Easley and O’Hara (Rev Financ Stud 22:1817–1843, 2009) While one may expect welfare gains by encouraging participation in financial markets by ambiguity-averse investors, we formally show that it hurts other investors and thus is not Pareto-improving without appropriate income transfers. We also examine the welfare effects of income redistribution among heterogeneous investors and government spending on investor education.