Some Statistical Properties of a Damage Random Variable in Invasive Species Management

Recently, Batabyal and Beladi (2009) have constructed a metric of the expected total monetary damage from the unintentional introduction of invasive species into a country called Home. In this note, we extend this line of inquiry by analyzing the statistical properties of this total monetary damage random variable. By “statistical properties,” we mean the variance and the covariance. Specifically, we first compute the variance of the total monetary damage at time t. Next, we derive a closed-form expression for the covariance of the total monetary damage at time t and at time t s, where s>0. Finally, we discuss three practical implications of our findings for the management of invasive species