Profiling at the Canadian Border: An Economist's Viewpoint

13 Pages Posted: 17 Jan 2007

See all articles by Don J. DeVoretz

Don J. DeVoretz

Simon Fraser University (SFU) - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: December 2006

Abstract

Scrutiny at the Canadian border to heighten security and simultaneously reduce type one (false positives) and type two (false negatives) errors utilize substantial resources as well as imposing opportunity costs on Canada in terms of time and trade diversion. One maligned strategy to minimize these costs at the border has been group or racial profiling. This essay develops a pedigree system for Canadian border security which simultaneously reduces both type I and II errors while avoiding the more egregious costs inherent in racial or group profiling.

Keywords: immigrants, borders, security

JEL Classification: J61, J68

Suggested Citation

DeVoretz, Don J., Profiling at the Canadian Border: An Economist's Viewpoint (December 2006). IZA Discussion Paper No. 2536, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=957246 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.957246

Don J. DeVoretz (Contact Author)

Simon Fraser University (SFU) - Department of Economics ( email )

8888 University Drive
Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6
Canada
7788086703 (Phone)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
94
Abstract Views
717
Rank
499,092
PlumX Metrics