Security Funds Not Well-Spent, Study Says
A group of researchers from two universities say the most cost-effective way to fight terrorism is not to pour money into homeland security. Where should we be spending our security funds?

According to an article by Reuters, the three economists – Todd Sandler and Daniel Arce of the University of Texas at Dallas and Walter Enders of the University of Alabama – say the most cost-effective way to fight terrorism is to boost international police cooperation and increase aid to developing countries.

The study found that global spending on homeland security measures has increased by approximately $70 billion per year since 2001. Those measures include intelligence-gathering, checks on air passengers, import inspections and protecting vulnerable infrastructure.

And the study also found that while this spending has translated into a drop of just over a third in transnational terrorist attacks, the average number of deaths per year has actually risen by 67 as militants responded by seeking deadlier strikes on softer targets.

“Because it is human nature to overspend on unlikely catastrophic events, it is likely that terrorists have succeeded in getting the world to overspend on counterterrorism,” the economists said in the study.

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