Valuing Disaster Prevention: Desert Locust Monitoring and Control

Joséphine Gantois, Anouch Missirian, Evelina Linnros, Anna Tompsett, Amir Jina, Gordon McCord and Eyal G. Frank

No 35215, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Monitoring systems for disaster prevention are costly, and measuring benefits is difficult when monitoring effort is endogenous. We provide the first causal estimate of one such system's impact using three decades of desert locust monitoring data. We document conflict-induced interruptions to monitoring in remote breeding areas, reconstruct how infestations spread to populated areas, and show that exposure to locust swarms around birth decreases child height-for-age, increasing stunting risk by over 7 percentage points. Eliminating the locust monitoring system would induce annual losses of US$25 billion, implying a benefit-cost ratio between 160:1 and 680:1 from child nutrition benefits alone.

JEL-codes: I15 O13 Q0 Q5 Q54 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
Note: DEV EEE
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