048

Title:

Incentivizing Landowners to Treat EAB Infected Ash Trees Using a Principal-Agent Approach

Discipline: Industrial Engineering

Presenter:

Chen Chen

Abstract:

The emerald ash borer (EAB) is a wood-boring insect native to Asia. Since it was first discovered in the southeast of Michigan in 2002, EAB has killed tens of millions of ash trees alone and been found in 34 additional states, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Manitoba. The cities plan for the management of ash trees to slow down the spread of EAB, however, they are only responsible for public trees. On the other hand, the majority of ash trees belong to private landowners who are responsible for their management. In order to enhance the collaboration between the cities and private landowners to more effectively fight against the spread of EAB, we develop a principal-agent contracting model. The model will induce the participation of private landowners with heterogeneous types and consider the number of symptomatic/asymptomatic ash trees, distance from infected trees, infection rate, as well as the budget. We derive analytical results and optimal solution properties based on our principal-agent game theoretic models. Our results imply that if the treatment is effective enough, the optimal solution suggests treating only the infested ash trees; and otherwise to treat all ash trees under some specific conditions.

Author(s):

Chen Chen, Esra Buyuktahtakin Toy, Wenbo Cai

Funding Acknowledgements:

NSF