ECONOMICS IN THE DESIGN, ASSESSMENT, ADOPTION, AND POLICY ANALYSIS OF I.P.M.

During the past twenty years, economics has played a key role in technology assessment and policy analysis related to integrated pest management (IPM) practices. The paper reviews economic analysis of IPM as applied to evaluating expected profitability, ex ante and ex post adoption, social welfare impacts, returns to research, and policies that affect pest management generally. In specific cases, economic methods have contributed significantly to the development of threshold-based IPM decision support software. Two areas that need greater economic input are assessment of biological pest management practices and the measurement of returns to research in IPM