Moral hazard in the British bovine tuberculosis control programme
研究了英国牛结核病控制计划中，赔偿金增加会削弱农户投资生物安全的动力，导致更多疫情爆发和感染持续时间延长，且额外成本约占赔偿金增加支出的四分之一。
Abstract Animal disease indemnity payments create a moral hazard problem by diminishing the financial burden of on-farm infection which, in turn, can reduce private incentives to invest in biosecurity. The economic importance of the moral hazard problem is a function of the size of the indemnity payment relative to market prices and input costs, as well as farm-specific disease risks and the probability that biosecurity efforts can reduce those risks. We investigate the importance of these contributory factors on disease outcomes in the context of the British bovine tuberculosis control programme using longitudinal herd-level data for all beef cattle herds in Great Britain. We show that, by disincentivising biosecurity investment, increases in disease indemnity payments lead to more on-farm breakdowns, increase the number of on-farm disease reactors and extend the duration of infection. Our findings suggest that the disease burden created through these unintended consequences accounts for approximately one-fourth of the additional programme outlays associated with a 10% increase in the per-head indemnity payment.