An Analysis of Inspections When Economic Cost Reduction Matters More than Biological Invasion Damage Control

DeAngelo et al. (2006, 2007) have shown that there are circumstances in which there is a tension between economic cost minimization and inspection stringency in invasive species management. We explore this issue further in this chapter by studying the behavior of a risk loving inspector in a seaport who is entrusted with the task of inspecting the container cargo on arriving ships for the presence of one or more deleterious invasive species. This inspector is risk loving in the sense that he is more concerned about economic cost reduction than he is about biological invasion damage control. Specifically, we first use the theory of continuous time Markov chains (CTMCs) to delineate a probabilistic inspection regime. Next, we mathematically explain the sense in which our inspector is risk loving. Finally, we use the stochastic features of the problem to compute the long run expected amount of time (LRET) an arriving ship that is inspected by the risk loving inspector spends in the seaport under study.