Sticker shock

VISAS are necessary evils. They offer governments a way to control their borders, whether to regulate the flow of immigrants or to pick out threats to security. But the paperwork and fees they entail also deter legitimate tourists and business travellers. Researchers at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, reckon that eliminating all travel visas to the United States would add between $90 billion and $123 billion in annual tourist spending. By one estimate, introducing visa restrictions can lower trade and foreign direct investment between a pair of countries by as much as 25%.The job of policymakers is to strike the right balance between such costs and benefits. On short-term business and tourist visas, they have failed. Take security. Visas, proponents say, keep countries safer by controlling who is able to enter. That is true, but they are not very efficient. Terrorists can be home-grown as well as foreign, qualify for visas (as the 9/11 attackers did) or slip across borders illegally. Imposing restrictions on the basis of nationality is the bluntest of instruments, scooping up legions of ordinary tourists and travellers as well as the occasional suspect. America’s decision to tighten the rules for anyone who has recently been to Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria will affect aid workers and plotters alike.