ABSTRACT
Although resistance against pest control agents is perceived as a major threat for crop protection, there is considerable uncertainty about the economic justification of resistance management strategies. This chapter adopts a resource economic point of view. Pest susceptibility toward control measures is treated as biological capital. The objective is to identify the major factors to consider when evaluating resistance management strategies. The economic theory of nonrenewable resources suggests that three variables need to be taken into account: (a) the uncertainty of decisionmakers about the parameters and the scale of the economic impact of resource depletion, (b) the direction and rate of technological change, and (c) the extent of common-property characteristics of pest susceptibility and its effects on different groups of farmers when adaptation to resistance spread is taking place.
