IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v128y2006i1p245-255.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hiding in plain sight – using signals to detect terrorists

Author

Listed:
  • Atin Basuchoudhary
  • Laura Razzolini

Abstract

This paper studies the interaction between a governmental security agency, as the Transportation Security Agency, or the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and a terrorist organization, like Al Qaeda. The governmental agency wants to stop the terrorists, but first must infer whether a visa applicant or an airline passenger is a terrorist on the basis of some observable signal. The terrorist organization's objective is to get past security to commit murder and mayhem. We derive the equilibrium strategy for this signaling model, and evaluate specific anti-terrorist policies, as the creation of the new Homeland Security Agency and increased airport security screening. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Atin Basuchoudhary & Laura Razzolini, 2006. "Hiding in plain sight – using signals to detect terrorists," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 245-255, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:128:y:2006:i:1:p:245-255
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-006-9052-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-006-9052-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-006-9052-x?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. Pape, Robert A., 2003. "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(3), pages 343-361, August.
    2. Lapan, Harvey E & Sandler, Todd, 1988. "To Bargain or Not to Bargain: That Is the Question," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 16-21, May.
    3. Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), 1995. "Handbook of Defense Economics," Handbook of Defense Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    4. John Knowles & Nicola Persico & Petra Todd, 2001. "Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(1), pages 203-232, February.
    5. Lapan, Harvey E. & Sandler, Todd, 1993. "Terrorism and signalling," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 383-397, August.
    6. Cauley, Jon & Im, Eric Iksoon, 1988. "Intervention Policy Analysis of Skyjackings and Other Terrorist Incidents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 27-31, May.
    7. Sandler,Todd & Hartley,Keith, 1995. "The Economics of Defense," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521447287, October.
    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. Aniruddha Bagchi & Jomon Aliyas Paul, 2014. "Optimal Allocation of Resources in Airport Security: Profiling vs. Screening," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 219-233, April.
    2. Song, Cen & Zhuang, Jun, 2017. "N-stage security screening strategies in the face of strategic applicants," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 292-301.
    3. Holt, Charles & Kydd, Andrew & Razzolini, Laura & Sheremeta, Roman, 2014. "The Paradox of Misaligned Profiling: Theory and Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 56508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Wang, Xiaofang & Zhuang, Jun, 2011. "Balancing congestion and security in the presence of strategic applicants with private information," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 100-111, July.
    5. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Todd Sandler, 2011. "The Interplay Between Preemptive and Defensive Counterterrorism Measures: A Two‐stage Game," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 78(311), pages 546-564, 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. Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger, 2005. "Measuring terrorism," Chapters, in: Alain Marciano & Jean-Michel Josselin (ed.), Law and the State, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger, "undated". "Terrorism: Deterrence May Backfire," IEW - Working Papers 136, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Konrad, Kai A., 2002. "Terrorism and the state [Terrorismus und der Staat]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance FS IV 02-15, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. Cárceles-Poveda, Eva & Tauman, Yair, 2011. "A strategic analysis of the war against transnational terrorism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 49-65, January.
    5. Suresh Ramakrishnan & Shamaila Butt & Melati Ahmad Anuar, 2017. "The Impact of Macroeconomic, Oil Prices and Socio-economic Factors on Exchange Rate in Pakistan: An Auto Regressive Distributed Lag Approach," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(1), pages 489-499.
    6. Todd Sandler, 2003. "Collective Action and Transnational Terrorism," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(6), pages 779-802, June.
    7. James Yetman, 2004. "Suicidal Terrorism And Discriminatory Screening: An Efficiency-Equity Trade-Off," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 221-230.
    8. B. Peter Rosendorff & Todd Sandler, 2004. "Too Much of a Good Thing?," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(5), pages 657-671, October.
    9. Todd Sandler, 2005. "Collective versus unilateral responses to terrorism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 75-93, July.
    10. Daniel G. Arce M. & Todd Sandler, 2005. "Counterterrorism," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 49(2), pages 183-200, April.
    11. Charles H. Anderton & John R. Carter, 2006. "Applying Intermediate Microeconomics to Terrorism," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 442-458, October.
    12. Sandler, Todd & Enders, Walter, 2004. "An economic perspective on transnational terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-316, June.
    13. Sylvain Baumann, 2019. "Intelligence Service for a Better Information: Application to a Terrorist Threat," Post-Print hal-02949075, HAL.
    14. Llussá, Fernanda & Tavares, José, 2011. "Which terror at which cost? On the economic consequences of terrorist attacks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 52-55, January.
    15. Gil Epstein & Ira Gang, 2007. "Who Is The Enemy?," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 469-484.
    16. J. Nassios & J.A. Giesecke, 2015. "The Macroeconomic and Sectoral Effects of Terrorism in the U.S.: A Reconciliation of CGE and Econometric Approaches," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers g-256, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.
    17. Meierrieks, Daniel & Renner, Laura, 2021. "Islamist terrorism and the role of women," Discussion Paper Series 2021-02, University of Freiburg, Wilfried Guth Endowed Chair for Constitutional Political Economy and Competition Policy.
    18. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    19. Hall Abigail R., 2015. "Drones: Public Interest, Public Choice, and the Expansion of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 273-300, April.
    20. Clémence Vergne & Camille Laville, 2018. "Comment analyser le risque sociopolitique ? Une composante clé du risque-pays," Post-Print hal-02358975, HAL.

    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:kap:pubcho:v:128:y:2006:i:1:p:245-255. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.