IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uqseee/48381.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Alternative Specifications and Extensions of the Economic Threshold Concept and the Control of Livestock Pests

Author

Listed:
  • Davis, Rex
  • Tisdell, Clement A.

Abstract

Outlines economic threshold models developed by various authors as an aid to decision-making about pest management. Particular attention is given to the models proposed by Stern et al. (1959) and by Headley (1972) and the major differences in their concepts of the economic threshold. Limitations and scope for applying these models is discussed as well as differences in the extent of their applications are reviewed. After considering general issues in this respect, particular matters are given attention such as difficulties raised by complexities in the nature of yield loss function due to uncertainty in pest densities, the presence of multiple-pests, and the occurrence of pesticide resistance. An extension is provided for multiple species pest models to incorporate both multiple-pest species and pest resistance. The presence of fixed costs and the complexities in determining actual cost functions for pest control are also raised as additional qualifications to existing economic models of decision-making about pest control. The combination of these factors limits the applicability of profit-maximising thresholds for livestock management, especially compared to other strategies such as prophylaxis, although improvements in dynamic biological modelling and computer simulations are increasing the scope for applying profit-maximising models.

Suggested Citation

  • Davis, Rex & Tisdell, Clement A., 2001. "Alternative Specifications and Extensions of the Economic Threshold Concept and the Control of Livestock Pests," Economics, Ecology and Environment Working Papers 48381, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:uqseee:48381
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.48381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/48381/files/WP58.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.48381?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. Hall, Darwin C. & Moffitt, L. Joe, 1985. "Application Of The Economic Threshold For Interseasonal Pest Control," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 10(2), pages 1-7, December.
    2. Darwin C. Hall & Richard B. Norgaard, 1973. "On the Timing and Application of Pesticides," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 55(2), pages 198-201.
    3. Gal-Or, Esther, 1993. "Strategic Cost Allocation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 387-402, December.
    4. Carolyn R. Harper & David Zilberman, 1989. "Pest Externalities from Agricultural Inputs," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 71(3), pages 692-702.
    5. Gershon Feder, 1979. "Pesticides, Information, and Pest Management under Uncertainty," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 61(1), pages 97-103.
    6. Clement A. Tisdell, 1986. "Levels Of Pest Control And Uncertainty Of Benefits," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 30(2-3), pages 157-161, 08-12.
    7. Akerlof, George A & Yellen, Janet L, 1985. "Can Small Deviations from Rationality Make Significant Differences to Economic Equilibria?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 708-720, September.
    8. Tisdell, Clem, 1982. "Exploitation of Techniques That Decline in Effectiveness with Use," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 37(3), pages 428-437.
    9. D. J. Pannell, 1990. "Responses To Risk In Weed Control Decisions Under Expected Profit Maximisation," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 391-401, September.
    10. D. Hueth & U. Regev, 1974. "Optimal Agricultural Pest Management with Increasing Pest Resistance," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 56(3), pages 543-552.
    11. Glenn Fox & Alfons Weersink, 1995. "Damage Control and Increasing Returns," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 77(1), pages 33-39.
    12. Auld, Bruce A. & Tisdell, Clem A., 1987. "Economic thresholds and response to uncertainty in weed control," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 219-227.
    13. Billera, Lj & Heath, Dc & Verrecchia, Re, 1981. "A Unique Procedure For Allocating Common Costs From A Production Process," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 185-196.
    14. Alfons Weersink & William Deen & Susan Weaver, 1991. "Defining and Measuring Economic Threshold Levels," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 39(4), pages 619-625, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tisdell, Clement A., 2003. "Notes on Market Failure and the Paretian (Kaldor-Hicks) Relevance and Irrelevance of Unfavourable Externalities," Economics, Ecology and Environment Working Papers 48970, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    2. Tisdell, Clement A. & Bandara, Ranjith, 2004. "Tourism as a contributor to development in Sri Lanka: An overview and a case study," Economics, Ecology and Environment Working Papers 48975, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    3. Schumacher, Sara K. & Marsh, Thomas L. & Williams, Kimberly A., 2003. "Optimal Pest Control In Floriculture Production Of Ornamental Crops," 2003 Annual Meeting, February 1-5, 2003, Mobile, Alabama 35025, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.

    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. Lichtenberg, Erik & Zilberman, David & Archibald, Sandra O., 1990. "Economics and Pesticides," Working Papers 197750, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    2. Mitchell, Paul D., 2001. "Additive Versus Proportional Pest Damage Functions: Why Ecology Matters," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20775, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Jones, Randall E. & Cacho, Oscar J., 2000. "A Dynamic Optimisation Model of Weed Control," 2000 Conference (44th), January 23-25, 2000, Sydney, Australia 123685, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    4. David J. Pannell, 1991. "Pests and pesticides, risk and risk aversion," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 5(4), pages 361-383, August.
    5. D. J. Pannell, 1990. "Responses To Risk In Weed Control Decisions Under Expected Profit Maximisation," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 391-401, September.
    6. Archer, David Walter, 1995. "Self-insurance and self-protection in weed control: implications for nonpoint source pollution," ISU General Staff Papers 1995010108000012033, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Gu, Xi & Marsh, Thomas L., 2017. "Pesticide Substitution Under Maximum Residue Limits: Application to Hops Production," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258572, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Regev, Uri, 1990. "The Impact of Risk on Pest Management Strategies," 1990 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Vancouver, Canada 270735, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Adamson, David, 2010. "Climate change, Irrigation and Pests: Examining Heliothis in the Murray Darling Basin," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 149879, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    10. Mathews, Kenneth H., Jr., 2001. "Antimicrobial Drug Use And Veterinary Costs In U.S. Livestock Production," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33695, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    11. Pannell, David J., 1988. "Weed Management: A Review of Applied Economics Research in Australia," Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 56(03), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Saphores, Jean-Daniel & Conrad, Jon M., 1996. "The Economic Threshold With a Stochastic Pest Population: An Application to the European Red Mite," Working Papers 127904, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    13. Secchi, Silvia, 2000. "Economic issues in resistance management," ISU General Staff Papers 2000010108000013359, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    14. Feng, Shuaizhang & Han, Yujie & Qiu, Huanguang, 2021. "Does crop insurance reduce pesticide usage? Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    15. Marsh, Thomas L. & Huffaker, Ray G. & Folwell, Raymond J. & Long, Gary, 1998. "An Intraseasonal Bioeconomic Model Of Plrv Net Necrosis," 1998 Annual meeting, August 2-5, Salt Lake City, UT 20935, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. Cheryl Brown & Lori Lynch & David Zilberman, 2002. "The Economics of Controlling Insect-Transmitted Plant Diseases," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(2), pages 279-291.
    17. Clement A. Tisdell, 1986. "Levels Of Pest Control And Uncertainty Of Benefits," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 30(2-3), pages 157-161, 08-12.
    18. Archibald, Sandra O. & McCorkle, Chester O. Jr & Howitt, Richard E., 1986. "A Dynamic Analysis Of Production Externalities : Pesticide Resistance In California Cotton," Working Papers 225802, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    19. Alain Carpentier & Robert D. Weaver, 1996. "Assessment of producers' attitude toward risk and information using panel data : the example of pesticide use in the French crop sector," Post-Print hal-01931607, HAL.
    20. Lybbert, Travis J. & Magnan, Nicholas & Gubler, W. Douglas, 2012. "Multi-Dimensional Responses to Risk Information: How do Winegrape Growers Respond to Disease Forecasts and to What Environmental Effect?," Working Papers 162521, Robert Mondavi Institute Center for Wine Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Livestock Production/Industries;

    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:uqseee:48381. 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/decuqau.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.