On economic-cost minimization versus biological-invasion damage control

Abstract

Recently, Batabyal et al. (2005) have used a queuing model to show that there is a tension between economic-cost minimization and inspection stringency in invasive-species management in the following sense: greater (lesser) inspection stringency with a larger (smaller) number of inspectors leads to higher (lower) economic costs. We use a more general queuing model to investigate whether there is, in fact, a tension between cost minimization and inspection stringency. Our theoretical analysis shows that there is no definite answer to this question. Therefore, we use numerical methods, and our numerical analysis leads to two conclusions. For many values of the model parameters that delineate the strictness of inspections, there is a tension between cost minimization and inspection stringency. In contrast, for most values of the model parameter that describes the volume of maritime trade handled by the port under study, there is no tension between cost minimization and inspection stringency