Estimating the cost of invasive species control

Optimal invasive species control depends on the nature of the removal cost function. Obtaining reliable estimates of removal costs, however, is challenging because the effectiveness of invasive species control is often unobserved. As a result, there are few, if any, estimates of invasive species removal costs in the literature. To address this challenge, we couple a spatial population dynamics model with standard econometric methods and estimate a removal cost function when control effectiveness is unobserved. Our cost estimates are based on unique panel data from 2004-2011 for 122 sites in the Invasive Spartina Project, a control program in the California San Francisco Bay Area. Contrary to common assumptions on removal costs in the invasive species literature, we find that removal costs are linear in removal suggesting that a bang-bang type of control is optimal, which is largely consistent with the Invasive Spartina Project's policy of rapid eradication.