Irreversible decision making in contagious animal disease control under uncertainty: an illustration using FMD in Brittany
将不可逆投资概念应用于高度传染性动物疾病控制，分析在疾病传播不确定性随时间消解时，等待新信息（准期权价值）对是否推迟疫苗接种决策的影响，并以布列塔尼口蹄疫为例进行数值模拟。
The concept of irreversible investment is applied to highly contagious animal disease control when uncertainty about the spread of the disease is resolved over time. In comparison with the strategy of destroying infected herds, the vaccination programme causes additional losses that cannot be recovered. These sunk costs are thus irreversible. Therefore, the gain from waiting for new information, namely the quasi-option value, should induce animal health authorities to delay the decision to vaccinate if the probability of a widespread epidemic is not too high. A numerical example is developed for foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Brittany. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.