 Income and Terrorism: Insights From Subnational DataMichael Jetter, Rafat Mahmood and David Stadelmann Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2024, vol. 68, issue 2-3, 509-533 Abstract: This paper first introduces a theoretical formalization connecting a polity’s income level to terrorism. Our framework can accommodate different underlying assumptions about individual- and society-level grievances, yielding competing hypotheses. We then construct a panel database to study terrorism for 1527 subnational regions in 75 countries between 1970 and 2014. Results consistently imply an inverted U-shape that remains robust to incorporating a comprehensive set of region-level covariates, region- and time-fixed effects, as well as estimating an array of alternative specifications. The threat of terrorism systematically rises as low-income polities become richer, peaking at GDP/capita levels of ≈ US$12,800 (in constant 2005 PPP US$), but then falls consistently above that level. This pattern emerges for domestic and transnational terrorism alike. While peaks differ by perpetrator ideology, the inverted U shape also prevails across ideology-specific subsamples. In sum, alleviating poverty may first exacerbate terrorism, contrary to much of the proposed recipes advocated since 9/11. Keywords: subnational income; subnational terrorism; domestic terrorism; transnational terrorism (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:68:y:2024:i:2-3:p:509-533 DOI: 10.1177/00220027231175071 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International) |
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