TY - JOUR
T1 - The impact on the US economy of changes in wait times at ports of entry
AU - Roberts, Bryan
AU - Rose, Adam
AU - Heatwole, Nathaniel
AU - Wei, Dan
AU - Avetisyan, Misak
AU - Chan, Oswin
AU - Maya, Isaac
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) under Cooperative Agreement no. 2010-ST-061-RE0001. We wish to thank the US Customs and Border Protection agency for access to primary data on travel and wait times at major border crossings. We are grateful to the following people for responding to questions during the course of the research and commenting on earlier drafts of the paper: Kevin McAleenan, Jennifer Pennese, Adam Wolf, Troy Riley, William Kallin, and one anonymous reviewer. We are also grateful to Georgia Harrigan of the DHS Office of University Programs for helpful suggestions along the way. However, any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the University of Southern California, Econometrica, Inc. or Texas Tech University.
PY - 2014/9
Y1 - 2014/9
N2 - Inspections of people and vehicles at US border crossings are vital to homeland security and preventing unauthorized movement of people and freight into the US interior. However, these inspections incur various costs, including imposing delays on legitimate traffic and increasing expenditures to operate the crossings. In this study, we quantify the economic impacts of delays related to movement of passenger and commercial vehicles across 17 major land border crossings and international air travelers at 4 major US airports. We estimate the value of time spent in these delays, and how this changes if one inspection officer is added to each crossing[U+05F3]s staff. We quantify how the transportation cost for shipping goods by truck into the US changes if wait time falls, and use the GTAP CGE model to estimate the change in macroeconomic activity in the US, Canada, and Mexico caused by the decrease in transportation cost. We also determine how many new cross-border passenger-vehicle trips result from a fall in wait time, and quantify the increase in economic activity in the US and its border regions associated with these new trips. Our results indicate that changes in US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staffing would have significantly positive impacts on US GDP, trade balances, and employment, and would also significantly reduce the opportunity cost of waiting by passengers and truck drivers. These results should prove useful to those making decisions on border inspection resources, analysts researching trade facilitation issues, and the general public and its representative organizations who incur the costs but also the benefits of inspections.
AB - Inspections of people and vehicles at US border crossings are vital to homeland security and preventing unauthorized movement of people and freight into the US interior. However, these inspections incur various costs, including imposing delays on legitimate traffic and increasing expenditures to operate the crossings. In this study, we quantify the economic impacts of delays related to movement of passenger and commercial vehicles across 17 major land border crossings and international air travelers at 4 major US airports. We estimate the value of time spent in these delays, and how this changes if one inspection officer is added to each crossing[U+05F3]s staff. We quantify how the transportation cost for shipping goods by truck into the US changes if wait time falls, and use the GTAP CGE model to estimate the change in macroeconomic activity in the US, Canada, and Mexico caused by the decrease in transportation cost. We also determine how many new cross-border passenger-vehicle trips result from a fall in wait time, and quantify the increase in economic activity in the US and its border regions associated with these new trips. Our results indicate that changes in US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staffing would have significantly positive impacts on US GDP, trade balances, and employment, and would also significantly reduce the opportunity cost of waiting by passengers and truck drivers. These results should prove useful to those making decisions on border inspection resources, analysts researching trade facilitation issues, and the general public and its representative organizations who incur the costs but also the benefits of inspections.
KW - Border crossing wait times
KW - Customs and border protection
KW - Economic impacts
KW - Trade competetiveness
KW - Transportation security
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84901982790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.tranpol.2014.05.010
DO - 10.1016/j.tranpol.2014.05.010
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84901982790
SN - 0967-070X
VL - 35
SP - 162
EP - 175
JO - Transport Policy
JF - Transport Policy
ER -