Private responses to public incentives for invasive species management

In this paper the impact of public policies such as subsidies and taxation on invasive species management is explored in a Markov chain process framework. Private agents react to public incentives based upon their long term expected profits and have the option of taking measures such as abatement, monitoring and reporting. Conditions for perverse incentives are derived. The impact of sequencing of taxation and subsides on spread of risks is explored. One key finding of this paper is that excessive regulation may sometimes exacerbate the invasive species problem.