Preventing disease outbreaks has widespread benefits that are dependent on the actions of many agents but can be undermined by the inaction of others. This paper explores whether a voluntary biosecurity-related assurance scheme can be an effective mechanism for curbing the risks of animal and plant pests and diseases. The decision to engage in such schemes is modelled using a coalition game where agents consider both direct costs of infection and regional outbreak costs like trade bans and movement restrictions. We find that government needs to support the scheme through incentives that reduce members’ outbreak costs like pre-agreed outbreak compensation or preferential regulatory treatment. Assurance schemes could provide significant improvements in biosecurity if membership is high; but without government incentives, stable coalitions are either small or ineffective at improving biosecurity. Government support can lead to large coalitions and robust improvement in overall biosecurity, with the optimal level of support being the smallest incentive that leads to a stable grand coalition. Policies that focus on either monetary or non-monetary incentives can lead to more robust improvements in biosecurity. In particular, targeting regional outbreak costs to members like movement restrictions leads to improved biosecurity for all levels of support.

预防疾病暴发具有广泛的益处，这取决于许多因素的作用，但可能因其他因素的不作为而受到破坏。本文探讨了与生物安全有关的自愿性保证计划是否可以成为减少动植物病虫害风险的有效机制。参与此类计划的决定是使用联盟博弈建模的，其中代理商考虑了直接感染成本和区域爆发成本，例如贸易禁令和行动限制。我们发现政府需要通过减少会员爆发成本的激励措施来支持该计划，例如预先商定的爆发补偿或优惠监管措施。如果成员多，保证计划可以大大改善生物安全；但是没有政府的鼓励 稳定的联盟在改善生物安全性方面规模很小或无效。政府的支持可以导致大型联盟的建立和整体生物安全性的强劲改善，而最佳支持水平则是导致稳定大联盟的最小动机。侧重于货币或非货币激励措施的政策可以导致生物安全性的更强劲改善。特别是，将区域暴发成本针对成员（例如行动限制），可以提高所有级别支持的生物安全性。侧重于货币或非货币激励措施的政策可以导致生物安全性的更强劲改善。特别是，将区域暴发成本针对行动限制等成员，可以提高所有支持级别的生物安全性。侧重于货币或非货币激励措施的政策可以导致生物安全性的更强劲改善。特别是，将区域暴发成本针对成员（例如行动限制），可以提高所有级别支持的生物安全性。