Abstract

The paper analyses the management of an infectious disease in a sympatric metapopulation, under both Nash and cooperative behavior. As pathogens are renewable resources with negative value, the problem may be non-convex. Since the disease can be transmitted across various connected populations, externalities are involved. A numerical application is developed with reference to a livestock disease which can be transmitted between herds on common pastures. The results suggest that optimal eradication in finite time should be pursued when possible. However, optimal eradication is not always possible (sometimes eradication can be only achieved asymptotically) and the ecology of the disease is of paramount importance in this respect. Ignoring these results may lead to inadequate policy design.