Income inequality, redistribution and domestic terrorism

Tim Krieger and Daniel Meierrieks

World Development, 2019, vol. 116, issue C, 125-136

Abstract: We analyze the effect of income inequality on terrorism for a sample of 113 countries between 1984 and 2012. We provide evidence, robust to various methodological changes (e.g., the use of instrumental-variable approaches), that higher levels of income inequality are associated with more domestic terrorism. Analyzing the underlying transmission channels, we find that this effect is in parts due to the ill effects of income inequality on institutional outcomes (e.g., corruption) which in turn motivate domestic terrorism. We also investigate whether redistributional efforts can be effective in reducing terrorist activity. We find that countries that redistribute more see less domestic terrorism, in parts because redistribution improves institutional conditions. In light of this latter finding, we discuss the implications of our analysis for policymakers who want to counter domestic terrorism through redistributive policies.

Keywords: Income inequality; Terrorism; Gini coefficient; Relative deprivation; Redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C36 D74 I38 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:116:y:2019:i:c:p:125-136

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.12.008

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