CATASTROPHE AND RATIONAL POLICY: CASE OF NATIONAL SECURITY.

Predicting catastrophes involves heavy‐tailed distributions with no mean, eluding proactive policy as expected cost‐benefit analysis fails. We study US government counterterrorism policy, given heightened risk of terrorism. But terrorism also involves human behavior. We synthesize the behavioral and...

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Publicado en:Economic Inquiry Vol. 59; no. 1; pp. 140 - 162
Autores principales: Mohtadi, Hamid, Weber, Bryan S.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Jan2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: CATASTROPHE AND RATIONAL POLICY: CASE OF NATIONAL SECURITY.
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          Mohtadi, Hamid
          Weber, Bryan S.
        affil:
          Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee, Milwaukee WI, USA
          Department of Economics, City University of New York, New York NY, USA
      su:
        Terrorism
        National security
        Quantitative research
        Disasters
        Calibration
        Counterterrorism
      sug:
        subj:
          Terrorism
          National security
          Quantitative research
          National Security
          Disasters
          Calibration
          Counterterrorism
      ab: Predicting catastrophes involves heavy‐tailed distributions with no mean, eluding proactive policy as expected cost‐benefit analysis fails. We study US government counterterrorism policy, given heightened risk of terrorism. But terrorism also involves human behavior. We synthesize the behavioral and statistical aspects in an adversary‐defender game. Calibration to extensive data shows that where a Weibull distribution is the best predictor, US counterterrorism policy is rational (and optimal). Here, we estimate the adversary's unobserved variables, e.g., difficulty of an attack. We also find cases where the best predictor is a Generalized‐Pareto with no finite mean and rational policy fails. Here, we offer "work‐arounds".
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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