Returns on investment to the British bovine tuberculosis control programme

In the animal health arena, government-mandated testing, herd movement restrictions, and culling of reactor (infected) animals are common practices in the midst of an infectious disease outbreak. These policies create a significant economic trade-off—on one hand, such control efforts represent a public good by reducing the negative externality of private actions associated with the transmission of infectious disease; on the other hand, they impose substantial economic costs on the affected farms. This paper empirically evaluates the economic trade-offs created by disease control efforts in the context of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in Great Britain. We find that—in this context—government control efforts are clearly cost-effective. Mandatory testing, imposition of movement restrictions on infected herds, and culling of reactor animals generate an annual external value of approximately £152 million to the British beef sector with a social return-on-investment of 3.46. Moreover, coupled compensation averts approximately 75% of the farm exits that would otherwise have resulted from these policies.