Revisiting Brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Area (2020) / Chapter Skim
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8 Economic Issues in Managing Brucellosis
8 Economic Issues in Managing Brucellosis
Pages 128-152
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From page 128... ...
. A simple bioeconomic cost-benefit analysis would assess the economic impact of particular disease management strategies on public and/or private lands.
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From page 129... ...
; Section 3 examines economic efficiency in a complex system like the GYA, with discussion of the economic considerations associated with various risk mitigation and adaptation strategies; and Section 4 discusses economic values in developing appropriate brucellosis control policies in the GYA.
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From page 130... ...
While not illustrated explicitly, the effects on the year 1 states means the economic influence of current actions will persist over additional periods. • The expected economic welfare arising from decisions made in one period takes into account economic impacts in future periods, as indicated by the horizontal arrows.
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From page 131... ...
There are key market and nonmarket costs and benefits that accrue annually to determine the economic welfare of several important GYA stakeholder groups. 3 The investment nature of disease management means the appropriate economic welfare measure for each group accounts for the expected stream of net benefits accruing over time (e.g., an expected net present value)
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From page 132... ...
Accordingly, the net benefits of brucellosis management policies are the expected present value of increased economic welfare relative to the case of no intervention. 5 Producers' profit functions are needed to predict disease-related costs or management-related benefits.
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From page 133... ...
may have nonmarket values that depend on wildlife stocks: for instance, values for wildlife populations that are at healthy abundance levels and safe from disease, or values associated with using predators to control populations. Wolves serve as a predator control for elk and positively influence visitation to Yellowstone National Park (YNP)
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From page 134... ...
removes healthy animals so that they are unavailable for future use or enjoyment by humans or for reproduction, and it removes diseased animals so that they are unavailable for generating future disease costs. Supplemental feeding is also non-selective, as it is not possible to only reduce feeding of infected animals.
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2.2 Decision-Making Criteria The expected economic outcomes associated with disease management depend on the specific management choices. These are not merely public policy choices but the private responses to those choices.
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The result is that the set of actions planned to be taken now and in the future will maximize the expected present value of current and future economic net benefits to society. Computationally, the efficient strategy can be identified using the optimization approach of stochastic dynamic programming to address dynamic considerations as well as uncertainty about the dynamic processes that generate future states (e.g., Leung et al., 2002)
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From page 137... ...
Thus, efficiency is enhanced when each additional dollar spent on disease control is applied to the activity that yields the greatest additional or marginal expected net benefits. The epidemiological benefits from undertaking multiple actions to reduce disease transmission can be characterized by impacts to disease management thresholds, commonly used by disease ecologists to inform management (Roberts and Heesterbeek, 2003)
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From page 138... ...
. Considering wildlife to be the source of brucellosis risk to domestic cattle and bison, risk mitigation involves reducing disease transmission among wildlife and potential exposure of healthy cattle to infection.
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From page 139... ...
The greater the overall marginal costs of highly targeted approaches relative to the expected marginal benefits, the more desirable it may become to adopt an imperfectly targeted approach, such as reduced supplemental feeding and increased harvesting and hunting activities. These activities are imperfectly targeted because they are nonselective as they impact both infected and non-infected animals without regard to an animal's health status.
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From page 140... ...
. Managing Risk Outside the Designated Surveillance Areas An important spatial consideration is the efficient allocation of risk mitigation efforts toward managing risks within the current DSA versus preventing expansion of the DSA (e.g., by reducing elk densities along the DSA border and in neighboring areas)
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From page 141... ...
. Risk mitigation efforts can also be undertaken on GYA ranches to reduce the risk of brucellosis spreading across GYA cattle herds, in the case that one or more herds become infected (e.g., keeping cattle separated in grazing areas and along fence lines)
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From page 142... ...
For some locations, it also makes sense to consider an alternative land use that does not involve cattle. The land use with the greatest expected social net benefits (taking into consideration any nonmarket values for ranchers to remain in the cattle industry)
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However, policy mechanisms are generally required to promote an agency's preferred disease management strategies when private individuals are involved. This includes hunters on public and private lands and ranchers on private lands and public grazing areas––at least when these individuals choose risk mitigation and adaptation strategies that are inconsistent with an agency's preferred strategy.
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From page 144... ...
, but it does reduce the number of policy variables, potentially reducing administrative costs and compounding errors. This approach is also advantageous because it gives private individuals the flexibility to decide how best to carry out risk-management activities.
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Specifically, efficient tax or subsidy rates tied to an activity affecting disease risks would be set equal to the expected external economic impacts of the activity in the efficient outcome. These incentive rates then act as prices that cause individuals to consider the expected external social costs or benefits associated with their choices (Baumol and Oates, 1988)
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. Both of these features increase the overall disease risks to society and reduce expected social welfare.
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A lack of coordination can result in limited efforts to manage brucellosis risks as well as limited collection and sharing of information that can improve opportunities for adaptive management. One reason for coordination failure is that the agencies and associated stakeholder groups who gain most from disease control (e.g., USDA and ranchers)
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From page 148... ...
An economic valuation can be used to quantify the concerns of GYA stakeholders. A bioeconomic framework that treats the GYA as a coupled ecological-socioeconomic system can then be used to compute broadly defined, long-term costs and benefits associated with proposed brucellosis management strategies.
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2007b. Jointly-determined ecological thresholds and economic trade-offs in wildlife disease management.
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2004a. Economic analysis of alternative bison and elk management practices on the National Elk Refuge and Grand Teton National Park: A Comparison of Visitor and Household Responses.
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Available online at https://www.michigan.gov/documents/ emergingdiseases/bovine_TB_SSS__Zoning_Final_as_of_9-26-11_364559_7.pdf (accessed January 11, 2017)
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From page 152... ...
2007. Bison and Elk Management Plan: National Elk Refuge & Grand Teton National Park.
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