IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/nceewp/280883.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Border Policies for Invasive Species under Asymmetric Information

Author

Listed:
  • Fernandez, Linda
  • Sheriff, Glenn

Abstract

This paper analyzes border protection policies for managing risk of unintended imports of invasive species. Previous work typically assumes invasive species risk to be exogenous and commonly known. Here, we examine cases in which endogenous actions (exporter abatement) affect risk and allow for unobservable differences in exporter abatement cost. We show how the optimal inspection/penalty regime differs in such cases from that derived for homogeneous exporters. The information asymmetry also makes it optimal for the regulator to provide technical assistance grants even if it would be otherwise inefficient to do so. Further, we show that the fungibility of technical assistance with inputs in other sectors of the exporting economy significantly affects the qualitative nature of the optimal policy. If it has no outside value in the exporter’s country, the optimal policy is characterized by a menu of contracts trading off higher tariffs with lower penalties for being caught with an invasive. If technical assistance can be used in other sectors of the exporter’s economy, it introduces countervailing incentives that make it optimal for the regulator to use a uniform tariff/penalty combination for all exporters.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernandez, Linda & Sheriff, Glenn, 2010. "Optimal Border Policies for Invasive Species under Asymmetric Information," National Center for Environmental Economics-NCEE Working Papers 280883, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:nceewp:280883
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.280883
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/280883/files/NCEE2010-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.280883?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim, C.S. & Lubowski, Ruben N. & Lewandrowski, Jan & Eiswerth, Mark E., 2006. "Prevention or Control: Optimal Government Policies for Invasive Species Management," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 29-40, April.
    2. Horan, Richard D. & Lupi, Frank, 2005. "Economic Incentives for Controlling Trade-Related Biological Invasions in the Great Lakes," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 75-89, April.
    3. Guesnerie, Roger & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1984. "A complete solution to a class of principal-agent problems with an application to the control of a self-managed firm," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 329-369, December.
    4. Costello, Christopher & Springborn, Michael & McAusland, Carol & Solow, Andrew, 2007. "Unintended biological invasions: Does risk vary by trading partner?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 262-276, November.
    5. Jullien, Bruno, 2000. "Participation Constraints in Adverse Selection Models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 1-47, July.
    6. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    7. McAusland, Carol & Costello, Christopher, 2004. "Avoiding invasives: trade-related policies for controlling unintentional exotic species introductions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 954-977, September.
    8. Lars J. Olson & Santanu Roy, 2002. "The Economics of Controlling a Stochastic Biological Invasion," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1311-1316.
    9. Burnett, Kimberly M. & D'Evelyn, Sean & Kaiser, Brooks A. & Nantamanasikarn, Porntawee & Roumasset, James A., 2008. "Beyond the lamppost: Optimal prevention and control of the Brown Tree Snake in Hawaii," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 66-74, August.
    10. Lars J. Olson & Santanu Roy, 2005. "On Prevention and Control of an Uncertain Biological Invasion ," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 27(3), pages 491-497.
    11. Kim, C.S. & Lubowski, Ruben N. & Lewandrowski, Jan & Eiswerth, Mark E., 2006. "Prevention or Control: Optimal Government Policies for Invasive Species Management," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 35(01), pages 1-12, April.
    12. Lewis, Tracy R. & Sappington, David E. M., 1989. "Countervailing incentives in agency problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 294-313, December.
    13. Mérel, Pierre R. & Carter, Colin A., 2008. "A second look at managing import risk from invasive species," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 286-290, November.
    14. S. Andrew Starbird, 2005. "Moral Hazard, Inspection Policy, and Food Safety," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(1), pages 15-27.
    15. Maggi G. & Rodriguez-Clare A., 1995. "On Countervailing Incentives," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 238-263, June.
    16. Christopher Costello & Carol McAusland, 2003. "Protectionism, Trade, and Measures of Damage from Exotic Species Introductions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(4), pages 964-975.
    17. Glenn Sheriff & Daniel Osgood, 2010. "Disease Forecasts and Livestock Health Disclosure: A Shepherd's Dilemma," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(3), pages 776-788.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Linda Fernandez & Glenn Sheriff, 2013. "Optimal Border Policies for Invasive Species Under Asymmetric Information," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 56(1), pages 27-45, September.
    2. Bate, Andrew M. & Jones, Glyn & Kleczkowski, Adam & MacLeod, Alan & Naylor, Rebecca & Timmis, Jon & Touza, Julia & White, Piran C.L., 2016. "Modelling the impact and control of an infectious disease in a plant nursery with infected plant material inputs," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 334(C), pages 27-43.
    3. Carrasco, L.R. & Mumford, J.D. & MacLeod, A. & Knight, J.D. & Baker, R.H.A., 2010. "Comprehensive bioeconomic modelling of multiple harmful non-indigenous species," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1303-1312, April.
    4. Cook, David & Carrasco, Luis Roman & Paini, Dean & Fraser, Rob, 2011. "Estimating the social welfare effects of New Zealand apple imports," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 55(4), pages 1-22.
    5. Burnett, Kimberly M. & D'Evelyn, Sean & Kaiser, Brooks A. & Nantamanasikarn, Porntawee & Roumasset, James A., 2008. "Beyond the lamppost: Optimal prevention and control of the Brown Tree Snake in Hawaii," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 66-74, August.
    6. C. S. Kim & Glenn D. Schaible & Jan Lewandrowski & Utpal Vasavada, 2010. "Managing Invasive Species in the Presence of Endogenous Technological Change with Uncertainty," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 250-260, February.
    7. Carson Reeling & Richard D. Horan, 2018. "Economic Incentives for Managing Filterable Biological Pollution Risks from Trade," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 70(3), pages 651-671, July.
    8. Carrasco, Luis Roman & MacLeod, Alan & Knight, John D. & Baker, Richard & Mumford, John D., 2009. "Optimal Control of Spreading Biological Invasions: For How Long Should We Apply the Brake?," 83rd Annual Conference, March 30 - April 1, 2009, Dublin, Ireland 50940, Agricultural Economics Society.
    9. Ollier, Sandrine & Thomas, Lionel, 2013. "Ex post participation constraint in a principal–agent model with adverse selection and moral hazard," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(6), pages 2383-2403.
    10. Péter Eso & Balázs Szentes, 2004. "The Price of Advice," Discussion Papers 1416, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    11. Lovell, Sabrina J. & Stone, Susan F. & Fernandez, Linda, 2006. "The Economic Impacts of Aquatic Invasive Species: A Review of the Literature," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 35(01), pages 1-14, April.
    12. Péter Eső & Balázs Szentes, 2007. "The price of advice," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 863-880, December.
    13. Ruiz del Portal, X., 2009. "A general principal-agent setting with non-differentiable mechanisms: Some examples," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 262-278, March.
    14. Gick, Wolfgang, 2015. "A Theory of Delegated Contracting," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113069, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Mehta, Shefali V. & Haight, Robert G. & Homans, Frances R. & Polasky, Stephen & Venette, Robert C., 2007. "Optimal detection and control strategies for invasive species management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 237-245, March.
    16. David Martimort & Jérôme Pouyet & Francesco Ricci, 2018. "Extracting information or resource? The Hotelling rule revisited under asymmetric information," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(2), pages 311-347, June.
    17. David Rietzke & Yu Chen, 2020. "Push or pull? Performance‐pay, incentives, and information," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(1), pages 301-317, March.
    18. Panico, Claudio, 2012. "Control and contract design in research collaborations: A complete contract perspective," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 459-470.
    19. Finnoff, David & Horan, Richard D. & Shogren, Jason F. & Reeling, Carson & Berry, Kevin, 2016. "Natural vs anthropogenic risk reduction: Facing invasion risks involving multi-stable outcomes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PB), pages 113-123.
    20. Noldeke, Georg & Samuelson, Larry, 2007. "Optimal bunching without optimal control," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 405-420, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International Relations/Trade;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:nceewp:280883. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nepgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.