IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/nrmchp/978-3-032-17580-9_20.html

Animals as Pets

Author

Listed:
  • Philip Howell

    (University of Cambridge)

Abstract

This chapter explores the complex and rapidly expanding pet economy, beginning with an overview of its global scale and structure. Even allowing for the speculative nature of industry-sourced data, the pet sector is undeniably vast: in the United States alone, it probably exceeds $150 billion annually, with comparable growth trends emerging in China, Europe, and beyond. This chapter examines the commodification of companion animals, the shifting boundaries between property and personhood, and the challenges of pricing beings that are both emotionally invaluable and economically significant. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, it considers the positive and negative externalities of pet keeping—from emotional and health-related benefits to regulatory gaps, abandonment, and illicit trade. The chapter concludes by arguing for a more nuanced economic and policy framework that reflects the moral, emotional, and social roles pets play in human lives. Proposed reforms include subsidised veterinary care, stricter regulation of breeding and the exotic pet trade, improved adoption infrastructure, and the internalisation of pets’ public health contributions. Ultimately, the pet economy demands an approach that transcends market logic, integrating ethical stewardship with economic insight.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip Howell, 2026. "Animals as Pets," Natural Resource Management and Policy,, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:nrmchp:978-3-032-17580-9_20
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-17580-9_20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nrmchp:978-3-032-17580-9_20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.