Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Community Development and Applied Economics

First Advisor

Asim Zia

Second Advisor

Julia Smith

Abstract

Transboundary animal diseases (TADs) decimate millions of livestock annually, withestimated costs in the billions. These diseases threaten global food security, production, trade, supply chains, human health, biodiversity, and ecosystem health. Addressing and mitigating TADs, such as Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and African Swine Fever (ASF), requires implementing on-farm biosecurity measures. However, human behavior and decision-making on farms or at ports of entry may compromise these efforts. Moreover, current biosecurity policies seek to reduce the impact of disease outbreaks. However, because investments in biosecurity are not tied to indemnification, these policies may inadvertently create a perverse incentive for producers to reduce their biosecurity expenditure before or during an outbreak. Traditional economic approaches have addressed such issues through financial incentives. However, a more profound understanding of producers' and public perceptions and motives about disease prevention and indemnification can inform public policy on animal health, improve market incentives, and reduce the associated cost of disease prevention. This dissertation fills this gap by using a mix of surveys, choice experiments, and simulation games to understand human behavior in epidemic prevention in the US. Grounded in the theory of planned behavior, the first paper aimed to understand the complex socio-psychological and demographic factors influencing farmers' biosecurity decisions. I conducted a national survey of 422 swine producers to assess their attitudes and intentions toward biosecurity. Using a latent class analysis, I identified three distinct classes of producers: Biosecurity Sceptics, Biosecurity Compliant, and Biosecurity Ultra-Compliant. The results show that producer characteristics significantly influence biosecurity attitudes and class membership, with small-scale producers less likely to adopt ultra-compliant biosecurity practices. Attending at least one eradication program encouraged biosecurity compliance, and a larger share of income derived from production operations influenced biosecurity compliance. After identifying the risk profile and attitudes of the producers, the second paper analyzed these responses concerning their ex-ante motivation to self-invest in biosecurity to be eligible for indemnity, the likelihood of buying livestock insurance before an outbreak, and readiness to report suspected infections on their farms. Using a partial proportional odds model, findings from this paper revealed that the intent to call a veterinarian, trust in government agencies, and farmers' risk perception were instrumental in the willingness to self-invest in biosecurity, buy livestock insurance, and promptly report infections on their farms. This provides evidence that biosecurity compliance would increase if indemnification were tied to a demonstration of biosecurity effort. In the third paper, I developed a choice experiment to elicit the preference between the current unconditional and alternative conditional indemnity policies. Findings from the study revealed a strong preference for the conditional indemnity policy. A decomposition of the factors revealed that females and older people preferred the conditional indemnity policy. Moreover, factors like anticipated regret and salience of biosecurity revealed a strong preference for the conditional indemnity policy. This finding supports implementing a conditional indemnity policy, which can potentially reduce the costs associated with disease outbreaks while incentivizing biosecurity adoption and addressing the moral hazard problem in the current indemnity policy. Theoretically, the study contributes to the literature on risk management and moral hazard by demonstrating that socio-psychological factors, such as anticipated regret and salience of biosecurity, play a critical role in shaping preferences for indemnity policies.

Language

en

Number of Pages

172 p.

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Available for download on Saturday, October 18, 2025

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