IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/johsem/v2y2005i3p19n2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inspections to Avert Terrorism: Robustness Under Severe Uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Moffitt L. Joe

    (Department of Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst)

  • Stranlund John K.

    (Department of Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst)

  • Field Barry C.

    (Department of Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Abstract

Protecting against terrorist attacks requires making decisions in a world in which attack probabilities are largely unknown. The potential for very large losses encourages a conservative perspective, in particular toward decisions that are robust. But robustness, in the sense of assurance against extreme outcomes, ordinarily is not the only desideratum in uncertain environments. We adopt Yakov Ben-Haim's (2001b) model of information gap decision making to investigate the problem of inspecting a number of similar targets when one of the targets may be attacked, but with unknown probability. We apply this to a problem of inspecting a sample of incoming shipping containers for a terrorist weapon. While it is always possible to lower the risk of a successful attack by inspecting more vessels, we show that robustness against the failure to guarantee a minimum level of expected utility might not be monotonic. Robustness modeling based on expected utility and incorporating inspection costs yields decision protocols that are a useful alternative to traditional risk analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Moffitt L. Joe & Stranlund John K. & Field Barry C., 2005. "Inspections to Avert Terrorism: Robustness Under Severe Uncertainty," Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, De Gruyter, vol. 2(3), pages 1-19, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:johsem:v:2:y:2005:i:3:p:19:n:2
    DOI: 10.2202/1547-7355.1134
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1547-7355.1134
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1547-7355.1134?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hadar, Josef & Russell, William R., 1971. "Stochastic dominance and diversification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 288-305, September.
    2. Ouchi, Fumika, 2004. "A literature review on the use of expert opinion in probabilistic risk analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3201, The World Bank.
    3. Hadar, Josef & Russell, William R, 1969. "Rules for Ordering Uncertain Prospects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 25-34, March.
    4. Kelsey, David, 1993. "Choice under Partial Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(2), pages 297-308, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moffitt, L. Joe & Stranlund, John K. & Osteen, Craig D., 2009. "Securing the Border from Invasives: Robust Inspections Under Severe Uncertainty," Working Paper Series 53127, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Resource Economics.
    2. Yakov Ben‐Haim, 2011. "Interpreting Null Results from Measurements with Uncertain Correlations: An Info‐Gap Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 78-85, January.
    3. Wieck, Christine & Rudloff, Bettina, 2007. "The Bioterrorism Act of the USA and international food trade: evaluating WTO conformity and effects on bilateral imports," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 56(03), pages 1-14.
    4. Q. Farooq Akram & Yakov Ben-Haim & Øyvind Eitrheim, 2008. "Robust-satisficing monetary policy under parameter uncertainty," Working Paper 2007/14, Norges Bank.
    5. John K. Stranlund & Yakov Ben-Haim, 2006. "Price-Based vs. Quantity-Based Environmental Regulation under Knightian Uncertainty: An Info-Gap Robust Satisficing Perspective," Working Papers 2006-1, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Resource Economics.
    6. Stranlund, John K. & Field, Barry C., 2006. "On the Production of Homeland Security Under True Uncertainty," Working Paper Series 14505, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Resource Economics.
    7. Wieck, Christine & Rudloff, Bettina & Wahl, Thomas I., 2005. "The Bioterrorism Act of the USA and international food trade: Evaluating WTO conformity and effects on bilateral imports," 2005 Annual Meeting, July 6-8, 2005, San Francisco, California 36292, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    8. Alexander Gutfraind, 2023. "Risk-reducing design and operations toolkit: 90 strategies for managing risk and uncertainty in decision problems," Papers 2309.03133, arXiv.org.
    9. Ben-Haim, Yakov & Osteen, Craig D. & Moffitt, L. Joe, 2013. "Policy dilemma of innovation: An info-gap approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 130-138.
    10. Ben-Haim, Yakov, 2021. "Feedback for energy conservation: An info-gap approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    11. Gary Gaukler & Chenhua Li & Rory Cannaday & Sunil Chirayath & Yu Ding, 2011. "Detecting nuclear materials smuggling: using radiography to improve container inspection policies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 65-87, July.
    12. Q. Farooq Akram & Yakov Ben-Haim & Øyvind Eitrheim, 2006. "Managing uncertainty through robust-satisficing monetary policy," Working Paper 2006/10, Norges Bank.
    13. Laura McLay & Jamie Lloyd & Emily Niman, 2011. "Interdicting nuclear material on cargo containers using knapsack problem models," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 185-205, July.
    14. Wieck, Christine & Rudloff, Bettina, 2007. "The Bioterrorism Act of the USA and international food trade: evaluating WTO conformity and effects on bilateral imports," Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development, Journal of International Agricultural Trade and Development, vol. 56(3).
    15. Vicki Bier & Naraphorn Haphuriwat, 2011. "Analytical method to identify the number of containers to inspect at U.S. ports to deter terrorist attacks," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 137-158, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David P. Baron, 1973. "Default Risk, Homemade Leverage and the Modigliani-Miller Theorem," Discussion Papers 31, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    2. W. Wong & R. Chan, 2008. "Prospect and Markowitz stochastic dominance," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 105-129, January.
    3. Caporin, Massimiliano & Costola, Michele & Jannin, Gregory & Maillet, Bertrand, 2018. "“On the (Ab)use of Omega?”," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 11-33.
    4. Merton, Robert, 1990. "Capital market theory and the pricing of financial securities," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 497-581, Elsevier.
    5. Guo, Dongmei & Hu, Yi & Wang, Shouyang & Zhao, Lin, 2016. "Comparing risks with reference points: A stochastic dominance approach," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 105-116.
    6. Ola Mahmoud, 2022. "The Willingness to Pay for Diversification," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 6235-6249, August.
    7. Christopher Chambers & Alan Miller & Ruodu Wang & Qinyu Wu, 2024. "Max-stability under first-order stochastic dominance," Papers 2403.13138, arXiv.org.
    8. Wong, Wing-Keung, 2007. "Stochastic dominance and mean-variance measures of profit and loss for business planning and investment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 182(2), pages 829-843, October.
    9. Rahul Mukherjee & Linda L. Tesar & Ron Alquist, 2014. "Liquidity-Driven FDI," IHEID Working Papers 17-2014, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised 11 Dec 2014.
    10. Bianjun Xia, 2011. "A simple explanation of some key time preference anomalies," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 695-708, May.
    11. Chan, Raymond H. & Chow, Sheung-Chi & Guo, Xu & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2022. "Central moments, stochastic dominance, moment rule, and diversification with an application," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    12. Yuyu Chen & Paul Embrechts & Ruodu Wang, 2022. "An unexpected stochastic dominance: Pareto distributions, dependence, and diversification," Papers 2208.08471, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    13. Alaouze, Chris M., 1991. "Transferable Water Entitlements Which Satisfy Heterogeneous Risk Preferences," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 35(2), pages 1-12, August.
    14. Egozcue, Martin & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2010. "Gains from diversification on convex combinations: A majorization and stochastic dominance approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 200(3), pages 893-900, February.
    15. Oliver Linton & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Yoon-Jae Wang, 2002. "Consistent testing for stochastic dominance: a subsampling approach," CeMMAP working papers 03/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Moraga-González, José L. & Sándor, Zsolt & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2014. "Prices, Product Differentiation, And Heterogeneous Search Costs," IESE Research Papers D/1097, IESE Business School.
    17. Hooi Hooi Lean & Michael McAleer & Wing-Keung Wong, 2013. "Risk-averse and Risk-seeking Investor Preferences for Oil Spot and Futures," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2013-31, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico, revised Aug 2013.
    18. Brent A. Gloy & Timothy G. Baker, 2002. "The Importance of Financial Leverage and Risk Aversion in Risk-Management Strategy Selection," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(4), pages 1130-1143.
    19. Kocourek, Pavel & Steiner, Jakub & Stewart, Colin, 0. "Boundedly rational demand," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society.
    20. Raymond H. Chan & Ephraim Clark & Xu Guo & Wing-Keung Wong, 2020. "New development on the third-order stochastic dominance for risk-averse and risk-seeking investors with application in risk management," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(2), pages 108-132, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:johsem:v:2:y:2005:i:3:p:19:n:2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.