Individual Well-Being and the Allocation of Time Before and After the Boston Marathon Terrorist Bombing

Andrew Clark and Elena Stancanelli

No 9882, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: There is a small literature on the economic costs of terrorism. We consider the effects of the Boston marathon bombing on Americans' well-being and time allocation. We exploit data from the American Time Use Survey and Well-Being Module in the days around the terrorist attack to implement a regression-discontinuity design. The bombing led to a significant and large drop of about 1.5 points in well-being, on a scale of one to six, for residents of the States close to Boston. The happiness of American women also dropped significantly, by almost a point, regardless of the State of residence. Labor supply and other time use were not significantly affected. We find no well-being effect of the Sandy Hook shootings, suggesting that terrorism is different in nature from other violent deaths.

Keywords: well-being; time use; Terrorism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F52 I31 J21 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-lma and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - heavily revised version, with Orla Doyle, published in: Economic Journal, 2020, 130 (631), 2065–2104

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Related works:
Working Paper: Individual Well-Being and the Allocation of Time Before and After the Boston Marathon Terrorist Bombing (2016)
Working Paper: Individual Well-Being and the Allocation of Time Before and After the Boston Marathon Terrorist Bombing (2016)
Working Paper: Individual Well-Being and the Allocation of Time Before and After the Boston Marathon Terrorist Bombing (2016)
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