Producer Livestock Disease Management Incentives andDecisions

摘要

This paper examines the economics of farm decisions to prevent and controlinfectious livestock disease. In the case of diseases with costly control toleratingsome level of disease is often rational to the producer. Public policy intervention isbased on future value and public good aspects of disease control which can lead to adiscrepancy between private and public action thresholds. Producer incentives fordisease management can be changed through new technologies that lower the costof prevention or control, subsidies or cost sharing of control measures, or on theconsumer side, a change in public desire for disease risk-free products that changesrelative prices. Economists can incorporate appropriate epidemiology of a givendisease in economic models to inform policy-makers on optimal value or method ofsubsidies that would prove most effective to make private incentives compatiblewith public policy goals.