Income and Terrorism: Insights from Subnational Data

Michael Jetter, Rafat Mahmood () and David Stadelmann
Additional contact information
Rafat Mahmood: Monash University

No 14970, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: To better understand potential relationships between income and terrorism, we study data for 1,527 subnational regions in 75 countries between 1970 and 2014. Results consistently imply an inverted U-shape that remains robust to accounting for 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 an income level of about US$12,800 per capita (in constant 2005 PPP US$), but then falls consistently above that level. This pattern emerges for domestic and transnational terrorism alike. Peaks in the income-terrorism relationship differ by perpetrator ideology. Thus, alleviating poverty per se may first exacerbate terrorism, contrary to much of the proposed recipes advocated since 9/11.

Keywords: terror group ideology; transnational terrorism; domestic terrorism; subnational terrorism; subnational income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2021-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Journal of Conflict Resolution , 2024, 68 (2-3), 509 - 533

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp14970.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Income and Terrorism: Insights From Subnational Data (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14970

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().