Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks
This paper examines the incentives for countries to report disease outbreaks such as swine flu, avian flu and SARS to the international community. Even cursory analysis suggests countries have conflicting incentives regarding whether to report an outbreak. Reporting an outbreak may bring medical ass...
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ftunivchicagols:oai:chicagounbound.uchicago.edu:law_and_economics-1260 2024-09-15T17:56:48+00:00 Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks Malani, Anup Laxminarayan, Ramanan 2009-10-01T07:00:00Z application/pdf https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/law_and_economics/261 https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/context/law_and_economics/article/1260/viewcontent/19330.pdf unknown Chicago Unbound https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/law_and_economics/261 https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/context/law_and_economics/article/1260/viewcontent/19330.pdf Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics Law text 2009 ftunivchicagols 2024-07-01T03:30:07Z This paper examines the incentives for countries to report disease outbreaks such as swine flu, avian flu and SARS to the international community. Even cursory analysis suggests countries have conflicting incentives regarding whether to report an outbreak. Reporting an outbreak may bring medical assistance, but also trigger trade sanctions to contain an outbreak. Modeling the decision as a signaling game where a country has private but imperfect evidence of an outbreak provides additional insights. First, not all sanctions discourage reporting. Sanctions based on fears of an undetected outbreak (false negatives) encourage disclosure by reducing the relative cost of sanctions that follow a reported outbreak. Second, improving the quality of detection technology may not promote the disclosure of private information about an outbreak because more informative reports could also trigger harsher sanctions. Third, informal surveillance ? an important channel for publicizing outbreaks ? functions as an exogenous, public signal that is less likely to discourage disclosure than better technology. Informal surveillance can counter false positive and false negative formal disclosures, reducing the relative sanctions for disclosing an outbreak. Text Avian flu University of Chicago Law School: Chicago Unbound |
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Law Malani, Anup Laxminarayan, Ramanan Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks |
topic_facet |
Law |
description |
This paper examines the incentives for countries to report disease outbreaks such as swine flu, avian flu and SARS to the international community. Even cursory analysis suggests countries have conflicting incentives regarding whether to report an outbreak. Reporting an outbreak may bring medical assistance, but also trigger trade sanctions to contain an outbreak. Modeling the decision as a signaling game where a country has private but imperfect evidence of an outbreak provides additional insights. First, not all sanctions discourage reporting. Sanctions based on fears of an undetected outbreak (false negatives) encourage disclosure by reducing the relative cost of sanctions that follow a reported outbreak. Second, improving the quality of detection technology may not promote the disclosure of private information about an outbreak because more informative reports could also trigger harsher sanctions. Third, informal surveillance ? an important channel for publicizing outbreaks ? functions as an exogenous, public signal that is less likely to discourage disclosure than better technology. Informal surveillance can counter false positive and false negative formal disclosures, reducing the relative sanctions for disclosing an outbreak. |
format |
Text |
author |
Malani, Anup Laxminarayan, Ramanan |
author_facet |
Malani, Anup Laxminarayan, Ramanan |
author_sort |
Malani, Anup |
title |
Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks |
title_short |
Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks |
title_full |
Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks |
title_fullStr |
Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks |
title_full_unstemmed |
Incentives for Surveillance of Infections Disease Outbreaks |
title_sort |
incentives for surveillance of infections disease outbreaks |
publisher |
Chicago Unbound |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/law_and_economics/261 https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/context/law_and_economics/article/1260/viewcontent/19330.pdf |
genre |
Avian flu |
genre_facet |
Avian flu |
op_source |
Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics |
op_relation |
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/law_and_economics/261 https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/context/law_and_economics/article/1260/viewcontent/19330.pdf |
_version_ |
1810432991549194240 |