Immigration policy and counterterrorism

Subhayu Bandyopadhyay and Todd Sandler

No 2011-012, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Abstract: A terrorist group, based in a developing (host) country, draws unskilled and skilled labor from the productive sector to conduct attacks at home and abroad. The host nation chooses proactive countermeasures, while accounting for the terrorist campaign. Moreover, a targeted developed nation decides its optimal mix of immigration quotas and defensive counterterrorism actions. Even though proactive measures in the host country may not curb terrorism at home, it may still be advantageous in terms of national income. Increases in the unskilled immigration quota augment terrorism against the developed country; increases in the skilled immigration quota may or may not raise terrorism against the developed country. When the developed country assumes a leadership role, it strategically augments its terrorism defenses and reduces its unskilled immigration quota to induce more proactive measures in the host country. The influence of leadership on the skilled immigration quota is more nuanced.

Keywords: Emigration and immigration; Terrorism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2011/2011-012.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Immigration policy and counterterrorism (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2011-012

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Scott St. Louis ().