Foreword: Special Issue on Invasive Species



iv April 2006


Agricultural and Resource Economics Review

unless complete information about the cost of
provision and other factors are known. C.S. Kim,
Ruben Lubowski, Jan Lewandrowski, and Mark
Eiswerth explore factors that affect the optimal
allocation of resources between exclusion and
control given an uncertain discovery date. Before
invasion, prevention is favored. After discovery,
if the pest population is below a threshold level,
both control and exclusion measures should re-
ceive resources; if the pest population is above
this threshold, then control activities are more
efficient. Joe Moffitt and Craig Osteen also look
at resource allocation issues given uncertainty
about invasion threats between prevention and
control. They examine decision rules based on the
minimax and relative cost criteria in order to ex-
press a cautious approach for decisions regarding
severe, irreversible consequences. They also ap-
ply a simple rule to develop a list of priority plant
pests. Erik Lichtenberg and Lori Lynch examine
pest-free status certification and how this impacts
exclusion, eradication, and control decisions for a
region. Pest free status certification is desirable if
the demand-side impacts (increased export reve-
nue) and supply-side impacts (lower pest damage
and decreased ongoing control costs) exceed the
compliance monitoring and eradication costs.
Certification is more likely for regions facing
costly treatment requirements (i.e., bans on ex-
porting) or possessing geographic traits that lower
monitoring costs and infestation probabilities than
it is for those regions exporting higher valued
products.

Many of the papers in this issue use models and
simulation techniques to examine an existing or
threatening invasive issue. The paper by Kim-
berly Burnett, Brooks Kaiser, Basharat Pitafi, and
James Roumasset examines policy outcomes for
an existing invasive plant in Hawaii that reduces
biodiversity, soil cover, and water quality, and
they examine an imminent threat of an invasion
by the Brown treesnake which could result in
native bird extirpations, power outages, and
health costs. The optimal level of prevention
and/or control is simulated under assumption of
prevention and control costs and lost ecosystem
services given assumed population levels. Their
results coincide with the theoretic results in the
paper by Kim, Lubowski, Lewandrowski, and
Eiswerth cited above. Marjolaine Frésard and
Jean Boncoeur use a bioeconomic model to study
the common scallop fishery of the Bay of St-
Brieuc (in France), where a slipper-limpet inva-
sion is competing for space. Their model com-
bines the dynamics of the two competing stocks
and finds that when an industry begins a control
program has a large influence on the overall eco-
nomic results. The paper by Zishun Zhao, Tho-
mas Wahl, and Thomas Marsh develops a con-
ceptual bioeconomic framework that integrates
dynamic epidemiological-economic processes to
analyze the effects of invasive species introduc-
tion on decision making in a livestock sector
(e.g., production and feeding). They simulate
different scenarios of foot-and-mouth disease to
demonstrate the usefulness of the framework in
facilitating invasive species policy design. Robert
Johansson, Michael Livingston, John Westra, and
Kurt Guidry simulate the impact of different
Asian soybean rust treatment options, as Asian
soybean rust had invaded nine U.S. states by
2004. Give new farm survey data on management
practices and geographic distribution of the fun-
gus, they find larger economic impacts than pre-
vious research has indicated. Rust infestations
will likely result in reduced soybean production,
reduced exports, and higher prices. Jeffrey Preste-
mon, Shushuai Zhu, James Turner, Joseph Buon-
giorno, and Ruhong Li examine the consequences
of a widespread, successful Asian gypsy and nun
moth invasion in U.S. forests under current poli-
cies and of trading partner responses. Trade liber-
alization is found to have a negligible effect on
U.S. imports of Siberian logs, the possible source
of the moths, and thus, on the risk of a pest inva-
sion. Although unlikely, a successful and wide-
spread pest invasion is found to have large effects
on producers and consumers. Alexander
Macpherson, Rebecca Moore, and Bill Proven-
cher use a different dynamic modeling approach
(principal-agent model) to examine the invasion
of Eurasian watermilfoil spread by boaters. They
find that the optimal management policies vary by
the designated management objectives: maximiz-
ing boater welfare (economic objective) and mini-
mizing milfoil spread (ecological objective).

Two papers use data to assess the impacts of
invasive species on housing prices in a New Jer-
sey community and on land use decisions in
southern Mexico. Thomas Holmes, Elizabeth Mur-
phy, and Kathleen Bell find a negative effect on
housing prices in a New Jersey community due to
an exotic forest insect—the hemlock woolly adel-



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