Securing the Containerized Supply Chain: Analysis of Government Incentives for Private Investment
分析美国海关的C-TPAT激励计划，通过博弈模型研究政府如何引导企业投资上游安全以减轻港口检查负担，发现合理计划可转移安全责任，且战略延迟可激励企业加入。
To mitigate the threat that terrorists smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States through maritime containers, the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspects containers upon entry to domestic ports. Inspection-driven congestion is costly, and CBP provides incentives to firms to improve security upstream in the supply chain, thereby reducing the inspection burden at U.S. ports. We perform an economic analysis of this incentive program, called Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), modeling in a game-theoretic framework the strategic interaction between CBP, trading firms, and terrorists. Our equilibrium results highlight the possibility that a properly run program can efficiently shift some of CBP's security burden to private industry. These results also suggest that CBP may have the opportunity to use strategic delay as an incentive for firms to join. Analysis of comparative statics shows that, with increasing capacity, membership in C-TPAT systematically declines.