I don’t know. My claim was based on reasoning from first principles. It was intended as an illustrative example that there could be positive externalities, not to measure them. If you have to triage nets, it’s probably the way to go, but if you’re triaging nets, you’ve probably made a bad decision. I can think of so many reasons to concentrate nets in one village, rather than spreading them out and micro-managing the deployments in the villages. One reason is habit formation. Another is the cost of distribution, which is probably low for marginal nets and high for a new village. A third is that there positive externalities compound, at least if you cross over the threshold of locally wiping out malaria. (Under that threshold, I’m not sure.)
I don’t know. My claim was based on reasoning from first principles. It was intended as an illustrative example that there could be positive externalities, not to measure them. If you have to triage nets, it’s probably the way to go, but if you’re triaging nets, you’ve probably made a bad decision. I can think of so many reasons to concentrate nets in one village, rather than spreading them out and micro-managing the deployments in the villages. One reason is habit formation. Another is the cost of distribution, which is probably low for marginal nets and high for a new village. A third is that there positive externalities compound, at least if you cross over the threshold of locally wiping out malaria. (Under that threshold, I’m not sure.)