An Optimal Surveillance Measure Against Foot-and-Mouth Disease in the United States

Surveillance programs on farms and in the local environment provide an essential protection against the importation and spread of exotic diseases. Combined with border quarantine measures, these programs protect both consumers and producers from major health concerns and disease incursions that can potentially destroy local agricultural production and supporting industries, as well as generate substantial losses in trade and tourism. However, surveillance programs also impose costs in the form of expenditures on the surveillance program itself, along with the costs of disease management and eradication should an incursion occur. Taking border quarantine expenditures as given, this paper develops a stochastic optimal control model (with a jump-diffusion process) to determine the optimal level of surveillance activity against a disease incursion by minimizing the present value of the major direct and indirect costs of the disease, as well as the cost of the surveillance and disease management and eradication programs. The model is applied to the case of a potential entry and spread of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in the United States. Results show that current surveillance expenditures are far less than optimal.Surveillance measures, border quarantine, disease incursion and spread, Foot- and-Mouth disease, stochastic optimal control, Livestock Production/Industries, Q1, Q17, Q18,

Saving the Seas: The Economic Justification for Marine Reserves

We contribute to the understanding of marine reserves and the management of renewable resources with uncertainty. We show that the key benefit of reserves is that they increase resilience, or the speed it takes a population to return to a former state following a negative shock. Resilience can also increase resource rents even with optimal harvesting. We contradict the accepted wisdom that reserves have no value if harvesting is optimal, reserves and optimal output controls are equivalent, reserves have value only with overexploited populations and that reserves must be large to offer benefits to fishers.Marine Reserves, Uncertainty

Productivity and exchange rate dynamics: supporting the Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis through an ‘errors in variables’ analysis

Standard tests of the Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson (HBS) hypothesis treat productivity levels in and across countries as fixed and observable, and offer little empirical support for the hypothesis. If productivity follows a jump-diffusion process, these standard tests will generate biased estimates, measuring productivity levels with error. This paper instead proposes an ‘errors in variables’ approach to correct this bias, and finds support for the HBS hypothesis assuming a jump-diffusion process in productivity. Empirical results are obtained for a data set available for the United States, Japan, West Germany and France over the period 1960 to 1996

Three Perspectives on Canterbury Freshwater Management

Freshwater management has attracted more public and media attention in Canterbury than in any other New Zealand region. Public interest peaked with the controversial 2010 dismissal of the elected regional council under special legislation (Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act 2010). For a range of views on these complex issues, we asked three people intimately involved in the process – elected councillor Lan Pham, appointed commissioner Tom Lambie and Ngäi Tahu cultural rights expert Karaitiana Taiuru – to contribute a short essay assessing the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.&nbsp

Designing Healthier Communities

Research conducted by Pham, Cowman, and Williamson, and advised by Kendall House and Amy Spurlock indicates that generational distribution differences and the variation between pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing versus online RN-BSN in the Boise State University College of Nursing provided different descriptive outlook statistics in regards to motivation to remain in healthcare and perception of risk for mask wearing in a clinical setting with patients. Results from a survey of 50 individuals (pre-licensure BSN & online RN-BSN) indicated a negative desire to remain in healthcare proceeding the COVID-19 pandemic, with the largest proportion stemming from the millennial generation or online RN-BSN. A larger neutral viewpoint on a healthcare career proceeding COVID-19 was found for the pre-licensure BSN and Gen Z/Gen X generations. Significant positive correlation among patient interaction and mask wearing were also found in all the respondents, with all generations reporting a higher perception of risk when not wearing masks in a clinical setting. Results have suggested that varying demographic categorization for the nursing field will result in differing perspectives for their career outlooks and perception of risk

The economic payoffs from marine reserves: resource rents in a stochastic environment

The paper analyses the economic payoffs from marine reserves using a stochastic optimal control model. The results show that even if the reserve and harvested populations face the same negative shocks, harvesting is optimal, the population is persistent and with no uncertainty over current stock size, a reserve can increase resource rents. Using actual fishery data we demonstrate that the payoffs from a reserve, and also optimum reserve size, increase the larger is the magnitude of the negative shock, the greater its frequency, and the larger its relative impact on the harvested population

Saving the seas: The economic justification for marine reserves

We contribute to the understanding of marine reserves and the management of renewable resources with uncertainty. We show that the key benefit of reserves is that they increase resilience, or the speed it takes a population to return to a former state following a negative shock. Resilience can also increase resource rents even with optimal harvesting. We contradict the accepted wisdom that reserves have no value if harvesting is optimal, reserves and optimal output controls are equivalent, reserves have value only with overexploited populations and that reserves must be large to offer benefits to fishers

Cod today and none tomorrow: The economic value of a marine reserve

Using data from what was once one of the world’s largest capture fisheries the economic value of a marine reserve is calculated using a stochastic optimal control model with a jumpdiffusion process. The results show that with a stochastic environment an optimal-sized marine reserve can generate a triple payoff that (a), raises the resource rent even when harvesting is ‘optimal’, (b) decreases the recovery time for the biomass to return to its former state and smooths fishers’ harvests and resource rents, and (c), lowers the chance of a catastrophic collapse following a negative shock

Food and biosecurity: livestock production and towards a world free of foot-and-mouth disease

A key challenge for global livestock production is the prevalence of infectious animal diseases. These diseases result in low productivity in meat and dairy production, culled animals, and significant barriers to trade and lost income from meat and meat products. Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects both developing countries, where it is often endemic and very costly, and developed countries where incursions result in considerable economic losses in the order of billions of dollars per year. In some cases, production levels of pork meat in developed countries have still not recovered to levels prior to past disease incursions, more than a decade ago. In developing countries, the export of animal products has exhibited sluggish growth for decades, constrained by ongoing animal disease problems. We make three contributions. First, we provide an overview of worldwide meat production, consumption and trade in the context of FMD. Second, we provide insights into the economics of biosecurity measures and how these activities should be optimally designed to enhance livestock production. Third, we analyse a case study of an FMDendemic country, Vietnam, which has been trying to achieve FMD-free status for some time. Lessons learnt from this case study shed light on the challenges in achieving FMD-free status in developing countries, which is useful for a global FMD control strategy and the promotion of world food security.Partial funding from the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis at the University of Melbourne is also greatly appreciated. This paper was part of a workshop sponsored by the OECD Co-operative Research Programme on Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems

Tracking Residual-Yolk Energy in Dormant Hatchling Turtles

Hatchling painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) spend their first winter inside natal nests without food and must rely on maternally derived energy in the form of residual yolk for up to nine months. In this study, we take a closer look at the use and movement of residual-yolk energy during the first 33 weeks (~8 mo.) after hatching by measuring changes in mass, lipid content, & protein content of yolk, liver, small intestine, and carcass. Our data showed a significant decrease in yolk mass by 64% and significant increases in carcass & liver masses of 9% & 16%, respectively, during the first 2 weeks after hatching. Yolk mass was further depleted to 17% at week 4, and did not significantly decrease further for the remaining 29 weeks. These results suggest that energy is transferred from residual yolk to somatic storage soon after hatching, and well before hibernation begins. We suggest that a low-temperature-induced down regulation of gut function that renders residual-yolk energy inaccessible during hibernation necessitates digestion and storage of residual-yolk energy soon after hatching when temperatures inside the nest are still high. That strategy may be used despite the net energy cost of digesting, storing, and later mobilizing that residual-yolk-derived energy. We are currently measuring triglyceride & protein contents of the aforementioned body parts to better track the use and movement of energy in the hatchlings