This chapter examines the challenges and risks within China’s real estate sector, a cornerstone of its hybrid economy that blends state intervention with market dynamics. The analysis highlights how local governments’ heavy reliance on land sales and debt financing has spurred over-investment and elevated leverage, creating systemic risks for both the financial system and broader economic growth. It discusses the roles of various channels – financing, tournament, and central government guarantees – in exacerbating market distortions and encouraging speculative behavior. The chapter also reviews recent market trends during the COVID-19 period, revealing significant mismatches between demand, supply, and pricing across different city tiers. While government interventions have successfully postponed a hard landing, they may not address underlying structural issues. Ultimately, the chapter argues that sustainable risk mitigation in the real estate sector requires structural reforms and the development of new economic growth engines to reduce over-dependence on real estate.

This concluding chapter highlights several important yet underexplored topics that merit further attention. These include attitudes toward animals in developing countries, the heterogeneity of individual preferences, the role of salience, charitable donations, and deontological perspectives.

This chapter argues that China’s recent economic trajectory mirrors the earlier experience of the East Asian “Little Dragons” (South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore), which experienced rapid growth followed by a slowdown due to increasing social complexity and exhaustion of growth drivers. China now faces a similar “crisis of success,” where its previous annual growth rate of nearly 10 percent is projected to decline to about 3 percent by 2030. However, unlike the Little Dragons, China under Xi Jinping is resisting the necessary shift toward market-oriented reforms and greater political flexibility. Instead, it is doubling down on centralized economic management and prioritizing party control over economic liberalization. This strategy risks suppressing innovation, increasing corruption, creating inefficiencies, and ultimately reducing China’s long-term economic dynamism and global influence.

This chapter introduces a method for empirically valuing animal welfare. The method involves calibrating key parameters discussed earlier, namely, the animal welfare score, utility potentials, and a monetization parameter. Three applications are presented: one examining the animal welfare levy applied to meat prices in France, another analyzing the global trend in animal welfare, and a third focused on a biodiversity management project.

This introductory chapter outlines the motivation behind the book, critically discusses anthropocentrism in economics, and introduces the distinction between the direct and indirect approaches. It also puts the book into perspective, highlighting its overall contribution.

This chapter explores research on proanimal concerns, including survey studies and WTP studies. It examines the vote-buy gap (i.e., the discrepancy between citizens’ attitudes when voting versus when shopping) and explores the origins of proanimal concerns.

Many decisions involving animals, such as meat consumption or biodiversity protection, influence the size of animal populations. This chapter explores key concepts in population ethics as they relate to animals, including the repugnant conclusion, the replaceability argument, and the procreation asymmetry principle.

This chapter adapts the canonical model introduced earlier to examine a case where animal welfare is a public good. It also explores a variant in which animal welfare is treated as a merit good. The chapter provides a theoretical discussion on different forms of altruism, the vote-buy gap, and the role of taxation in restoring market efficiency.

This chapter provides an overview of the status of animals in the world. It begins by estimating the number of animals, then examines their importance for the economy. It also explores the state of animal welfare and offers a brief overview of the philosophical and legal perspectives on the subject.

This chapter examines the challenge of interspecies welfare comparisons and introduces a key concept: utility potentials. This concept seeks to quantify species’ capacity to experience welfare and can be estimated using survey studies, neuron counts, or the welfare range approach.