Three essays on economics of highly pathogenic avian influenza
Date
2016
Authors
Thompson, Jada, author
Countryman, Amanda, advisor
Pendell, Dustin, advisor
Hadrich, Joleen, committee member
Magzamen, Sheryl, committee member
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Volume Title
Abstract
Highly pathogenic disease can affect trade between countries. How health officials in an affected country manage a disease event can affect the potential impacts of a disease event. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and exotic Newcastle disease (ND) are two diseases that affect poultry industries and it is important to understand the ramifications of having an event of either of these diseases. The implications of an outbreak are first felt internally, where domestic markets are affected through changes in stocks and price changes. Secondly, the impacts are external. These external impacts can come in the form of potential trade bans from importing countries as a result of health concerns. This work analyzes both of these impacts to provide a holistic understanding of a HPAI or ND event on U.S. poultry markets. The first essay models the U.S. egg layer industry to estimate the producer and consumer impacts of a regionalized disease outbreak to compare the benefits of using business continuity during a disease event. The estimated value of business continuity during a hypothetical disease event is $13.6 million in two quarters. The second essay then determines the factors that affect trade quantities for exporting countries including the effect of a disease outbreak on the quantity traded. Highly pathogenic avian influenza is found to change the composition of trade between different product categories, providing exporters a better understanding of how product mixture might change during a disease event. The third essay builds on the methodology of the second essay to compare modeling properties of an improved estimator in determining the factors that affect bilateral trade quantities. There are small efficiency gains captured by using a systems approach, but data are limited due to the methodology, causing a tradeoff between usable bilateral trade data and efficiency gains in estimation. The three essays combined provide an overview of how a highly pathogenic disease outbreak can affect U.S. markets for poultry products both domestically and internationally.
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Subject
avian influenza
international trade
animal health economics
partial equilibrium modeling
Hausman-Taylor seemingly unrelated regression