An Economic Perspective on Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis occasional-series paper offers an economic perspective on the study of terrorism and counterterrorism. At the outset, the paper identifies how the economic perspective enriches terrorism analysis by stressing rational choice of myriad agents (e.g., the terrorist groups, their supporters, and targeted governments) subject to constraints. Game-theoretic strategic rational choice allows allied and adversarial agents to incorporate the responses of others into their interdependent choices. Economists’ theoretical paradigms are judged by their success in predicting agents’ behavior and informing effective policies. Since 9/11, many political scientists, operation researchers, sociologists, and others applied economic methods to their study of terrorism. To illustrate selected applications of the economic approach, the paper considers findings from economic studies on bargaining and making concessions during hostage incidents, judging the effectiveness of counterterrorism strategies, identifying the economic consequences of terrorism, and finding adequate identification strategies in empirical studies. Future directions and some shortcomings of the economic approach complete the study.KEYWORDS: Economic approachrationality and terrorismconcessions in hostage incidentseconomic consequences of terrorist attacksempirical identification strategies AcknowledgmentsThe author profited from comments from two anonymous reviewers.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Lionel Robbins, The Nature and Significance of Economic Science (London: Macmillan, 1962), 16.2. Jack Hirshleifer, “The Expanding Domain of Economics,” American Economic Review 75, no. 6 (1985): 53–68.3. See, e.g., Navin A. Bapat, “Transnational Terrorism, US Military Aid, and the Incentive to Misrepresent,” Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 3 (2011): 303–18; Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, “Conciliation, Counterterrorism, and Patterns of Terrorist Violence,” International Organization 59, no. 1 (2005): 145–76; Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, “The Quality of Terror,” American Journal of Political Science 49, no. 3 (2005): 515–30; David B. Carter, “The Strategy of Territorial Conflict,” American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 4 (2010): 969–87; David B. Carter, “A Blessing or Curse? State Support for Terrorist Groups,” International Organization 66, no. 1 (2012): 129–51; James A. Piazza, “Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing States Promote Transnational Terrorism?” International Studies Quarterly 52, no. 3 (2008): 469–88; James A. Piazza, “Poverty, Minority Economic Discrimination, and Domestic Terrorism,” Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 3 (2011): 339–53.4. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4.5. See, e.g., Yonah Alexander and Dennis Pluchinsky, Europe’s Red Terrorists: The Fighting Communist Organizations (London: Frank Cass, 1992); Martha Crenshaw, “The Causes of Terrorism,” Comparative Politics 13, no. 4 (1981): 379–99: William L. Eubank and Leonard B. Weinberg, “Does Democracy Encourage Terrorism?” Terrorism and Political Violence 6, no. 4 (1994): 417–35; Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012); Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism and the Liberal State, revised ed. (London: Frank Cass, 1986).6. Reinhard Selten, “A Simple Game Model of Kidnappings,” in Mathematical Economics and Game Theory: Essays in Honor of Oskar Morgenstern, ed. Rudolf Henn and Otto Moeschlin (Berlin: Springer, 1977), 139–55.7. Harvey E. Lapan and Todd Sandler, “To Bargain or Not to Bargain: That Is the Question,” American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings 78, no. 2 (1988): 16–21.8. William M. Landes, “An Economic Study of US Aircraft Hijackings, 1961–1976,” Journal of Law and Economics 21, no. 1 (1978): 1–31.9. Ibid., 12–13.10. Todd Sandler, John T. Tschirhart, and Jon Cauley, “A Theoretical Analysis of Transnational Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 77, no. 1 (1983): 36–54.11. Scott E. Atkinson, Todd Sandler, and John T. Tschirhart, “Terrorism in a Bargaining Framework,” Journal of Law and Economics 30, no. 1 (1987): 1–21.12. Charles H. Anderton and John R. Carter, “On Rational Choice Theory and the Study of Terrorism,” Defence and Peace Economics 16, no. 4 (2005): 275–82: Andreas Freytag, Jens J. Krüger, Daniel Meierrieks, and Friedrich Schneider, “The Origins of Terrorism: Cross-Country Estimates of Socio-Economic Determinants of Terrorism,” European Journal of Political Economy 27, no. Suppl. (2011): S5–S16; Sandler et al., “A Theoretical Analysis of Transnational Terrorism.”13. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, “The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies: A Vector-Autoregression-Intervention Analysis,” American Political Science Review 87, no. 4 (1993): 829–44; Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism.14. Enders and Sandler, “The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies,” 839–41.15. Ibid., 843; Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, “What Do We know about the Substitution Effect in Transnational Terrorism,” in Researching Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures, ed. Andrew Silke (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), 119–37; Todd Sandler and Harvey E. Lapan, “The Calculus of Dissent: An Analysis of Terrorists’ Choice of Targets,” Synthese 76, no. 2 (1988): 245–61.16. Patrick T. Brandt and Todd Sandler, “What Do Transnational Terrorists Target? Has It Changed? Are We Safer?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 2 (2010): 214–36; Patrick T. Brandt and Todd Sandler, “A Bayesian Poisson Vector Autoregression Model,” Political Analysis 20, no. 3 (2012): 292–315; Sara M. T. Polo, “The Quality of Terrorist Violence: Explaining the Logic of Terrorism Target Choice,” Journal of Peace Research 57, no. 2 (2020): 233–50; Sandler and Lapan, “The Calculus of Dissent.”17. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, “Distribution of Transnational Terrorism among Countries by Income Classes and Geography after 9/11,” International Studies Quarterly 50, no. 2 (2006): 367–93; Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism.18. Todd Sandler, “The Analytical Study of Terrorism: Taking Stock,” Journal of Peace Research 51, no. 4 (2014): 257–71; Todd Sandler and Daniel G. Arce, “Terrorism and Game Theory,” Simulation and Gaming 34, no. 3 (2003): 319–37; Kevin Siqueira, “Political and Militant Wings within Dissident Movements and Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 2 (2005): 218–36.19. Enders and Sandler, “The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies,” 839–40; Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism.20. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), “Global Terrorism Database (GTD),” www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ (accessed February 3, 2023); Edward F. Mickolus, Todd Sandler, Jean M. Murdock, and Peter Flemming, International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), 1968–2021 (Ponte Vedra, FL: Vinyard Software, 2022).21. For domestic terrorist incidents, the victims and perpetrators are citizens from the venue country of the attack. Transnational terrorist events involve victims or perpetrators or both from more than one country. If some of the victims or perpetrators are not citizens of the venue country, then the terrorist attack is also a transnational incident.22. Enders and Sandler, “The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies”; Christopher Hewitt, Effectiveness of Anti-Terrorist Policies (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984); Michele L. Malvesti, “Bombing bin Laden: Accessing the Effectiveness of Air Strikes as a Counter-Terrorism Strategy,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 26, no. 1 (2002): 17–29; Nadav Morag, “Measuring Success in Coping with Terrorism: The Israeli Case,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 28, no. 4 (2005): 307–20.23. Mikel Buesa, Aurelia Valiño, Joost Heijs, Thomas Baumert, and Javier G. Gomez, “The Economic Costs of March 11: Measuring Direct Economic Cost of the Terrorist Attack on March 11, 2004,” Terrorism and Political Violence 19, no. 4 (2007): 489–509; Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, 288–316.24. S. Brock Blomberg, Gregory D. Hess, and Athanasios Orphanides, “The Macroeconomic Consequences of Terrorism,” Journal of Monetary Economics 51, no. 5 (2004): 1007–32; Todd Sandler and Walter Enders, “Economic Consequences of Terrorism in Developed and Developing Countries: An Overview,” in Terrorism, Economic Development and Political Openness, ed. Philip Keefer and Norman Loayza (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 17–47.25. See, e.g., case studies in Stephen D. Collins, “Dissuading State Support of Terrorism: Strikes or Sanctions? (An Analysis of Dissuasion Measures Employed against Libya),” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 27, no. 1 (2004): 1–18; Hewitt, Effectiveness of Anti-Terrorist Policies; Malvesti, “Bombing bin Laden”; Morag, “Measuring Success in Coping with Terrorism.”26. Patrick T. Brandt, Justin George, and Todd Sandler, “Why Concessions Should Not Be Made to Terrorist Kidnappers,” European Journal of Political Economy 44 (2016): 41–52; Adam Dolnik and Keith M. Fitzgerald, Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2008); Margaret A. Wilson, “Toward a Model of Terrorist Behavior in Hostage-Taking Incidents,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44, no. 4 (2000): 403–24.27. Konstantinos Drakos and Nicholas Giannakopoulos, “An Econometric Analysis of Counterterrorism Effectiveness: The Impact of Life and Property Losses,” Public Choice 139, no. 1 (2009): 135–51; Enders and Sandler, “The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies”; Landes, “An Economic Study of US Aircraft Hijackings.”28. This percentage is based on data from ITERATE. The latest hostage-taking data with key variables coded currently end in 2018.29. Wukki Kim, Justin George, and Todd Sandler, “Introducing Transnational Terrorist Hostage Event (TTHE) Data Set, 1978 to 2018,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 65, no. 2–3 (2021): 619–41.30. Brandt et al., “Why Concessions Should Not Be Made to Terrorist Kidnappers.”31. These incidents and other larger scale hostage attacks are described in Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, 350–52.32. Patrick T. Brandt and Todd Sandler, “Hostage Taking: Understanding Terrorism Event Dynamics,” Journal of Policy Modeling 31, no. 5 (2009): 758–78; Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, 201–3; Wilson, “Toward a Model of Terrorist Behavior in Hostage-Taking Incidents.”33. Kerim P. Arin, Eberhard Feess, Torben Kuhlenkasper, and Otto F. M. Reich, “Negotiating with Terrorists: The Costs of Compliance,” Southern Economic Journal 86, no. 1 (2019): 305–17; Khusrav Gaibulloev and Todd Sandler, “Hostage Taking: Determinants of Terrorist Logistical and Negotiation Success,” Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 6 (2009): 739–56; Kim et al., “Introducing Transnational Terrorist Hostage Event (TTHE) Data Set.”34. Arin et al., “Negotiating with Terrorists”; Atkinson et al., “Terrorism in a Bargaining Framework”; Brandt and Sandler, “Hostage Taking”; Alexander Fink and Mark Pringle, “Kidnap Insurance and Its Impact on Kidnapping Outcomes,” Public Choice 160, no. 3–4 (2014): 481–99; Gaibulloev and Sandler, “Hostage Taking”; Lapan and Sandler, “To Bargain or Not to Bargain”; Chia-yi Lee, “Democracy, Civil Liberties, and Hostage-Taking Terrorism,” Journal of Peace Research 50, no. 2 (2013): 235–48; Charlinda Santifort and Todd Sandler, “Terrorist Success in Hostage-Taking Missions: 1978–2010,” Public Choice 156, no. 1–2 (2013): 125–37.35. Kim et al., “Introducing Transnational Terrorist Hostage Event (TTHE) Data Set,” 624–5.36. Avinash Dixit, Susan Skeath, and David Reiley, Jr., Games of Strategy, 4th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2015).37. See, e.g., Atkinson et al., “Terrorism in a Bargaining Framework”; Brandt and Sandler, “Hostage Taking”; Gaibulloev and Sandler, “Hostage Taking”; Lee, “Democracy, Civil Liberties, and Hostage-Taking Terrorism”; Santifort and Sandler, “Terrorist Success in Hostage-Taking Missions.”38. See, e.g., Kim et al., “Introducing Transnational Terrorist Hostage Event (TTHE) Data Set.”39. The relevant literature on this no-concession policy includes Arin et al., “Negotiating with Terrorists”; Brandt et al., “Why Concessions Should Not Be Made to Terrorist Kidnappers”; Brandt and Sandler, “Hostage Taking”; Lapan and Sandler, “To Bargain or Not to Bargain”; Steven Poe, “Nations’ Responses to Transnational Hostage Events: A Empirical Evaluation,” International Interaction 14, no. 1 (1988): 27–40; Aslihan Saygili, “Concessions or Crackdown: How Regime Stability Shapes Democratic Responses to Hostage Taking Terrorism,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 63, no. 2 (2019): 468–501; John L. Scott, “Reputation Building in Hostage Taking Incidents,” Defence and Peace Economics 2, no. 3 (1991): 209–18.40. Brandt et al., “Why Concessions Should Not Be Made to Terrorist Kidnappers,” 47–9.41. Ibid., 49–51.42. A similar result is found for skyjackings and barricade missions by Brandt and Sandler, “Hostage Taking.”43. Kim et al., “Introducing Transnational Terrorist Hostage Event (TTHE) Data Set.”44. Daniel G. Arce and Todd Sandler, “Counterterrorism: A Game-Theoretic Analysis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 2 (2005): 183–200; Subhayu Bandyopadhyay and Todd Sandler, “The Interplay between Preemptive and Defensive Counterterrorism Measures: A Two-Stage Game,” Economica 78, no. 311 (2011): 546–64; Navin A. Bapat, “The Internationalization of Terrorist Campaigns,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 24, no. 4 (2007): 265–80; Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, “Politics and the Suboptimal Provision of Counterterror,” International Organization 61, no. 1 (2007): 9–36; Eva Cárceles-Poveda and Yair Tauman, “A Strategic Analysis of the War against Transnational Terrorism,” Games and Economic Behavior 74, no. 1 (2011): 49–65; Harvey E. Lapan and Todd Sandler, “Terrorism and Signalling,” European Journal of Political Economy 9, no. 3 (1993): 383–97; Per B. Overgaard, “The Scale of Terrorist Attacks as a Signal of Resources,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 38, no. 3 (1994): 452–78; Sandler and Lapan, “The Calculus of Dissent”; Sandler et al., “A Theoretical Analysis of Transnational Terrorism”; Friedrich Schneider, Tilman Brück, and Daniel Meierrieks, “The Economics of Counterterrorism: A Survey,” Journal of Economic Surveys 29, no. 1 (2015): 131–57.45. Efraim Benmelech, Claude Berrebi, and Esteban F. Klor, “Counter-Suicide-Terrorism: Evidence from House Demolitions,” Journal of Politics 77, no. 1 (2015): 27–43; Walter Enders and Paan Jindapon, “Network Externalities and the Structure of Terror Networks,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 2 (2020): 262–80; Daniel Jacobson and Edward H. Kaplan, “Suicide Bombings and Targeted Killings in (Counter-) Terror Games,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no. 5 (2007): 772–92; Malvesti, “Bombing bin Laden”; Morag, “Measuring Success in Coping with Terrorism”; B. Peter Rosendorff and Todd Sandler, “Too Much of a Good Thing? The Proactive Response Dilemma,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 5 (2004): 657–71.46. Bandyopadhyay and Sandler, “The Interplay between Preemptive and Defensive Counterterrorism Measures”; Cárceles-Poveda and Tauman, “A Strategic Analysis of the War against Transnational Terrorism”; Todd Sandler and Kevin Siqueira, “Global Terrorism: Deterrence versus Preemption,” Canadian Journal of Economics 39, no. 4 (2006): 1370–87.47. Anderton and Carter, “On Rational Choice Theory and the Study of Terrorism”; Laura Dugan and Erica Chenoweth, “Moving beyond Deterrence: The Effectiveness of Raising the Expected Utility of Abstaining from Terrorism in Israel,” American Sociological Review 77, no. 4 (2012): 597–624; Bruno S. Frey and Simon Luechinger, “How to Fight Terrorism: Alternatives to Deterrence,” Defence and Peace Economics 14, no. 4 (2003): 237–49; Morag, “Measuring Success in Coping with Terrorism.”48. Brandt and Sandler, “What Do Transnational Terrorists Target?”49. Bandyopadhyay and Sandler, “The Interplay between Preemptive and Defensive Counterterrorism Measures”; Sandler and Lapan, “The Calculus of Dissent.”50. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, Todd Sandler, and Javed Younas, “Foreign Direct Investment, Aid, and Terrorism,” Oxford Economic Papers 66, no. 1 (2014): 25–50.51. On backlash, See, e.g., Daniel G. Arce and Todd Sandler, “Terrorist Spectaculars: Backlash Attacks and the Focus of Intelligence,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 2 (2010): 354–73; Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Rosendorff and Sandler, “Too Much of a Good Thing?”; B. Peter Rosendorff and Todd Sandler, “Suicide Terrorism and the Backlash Effect,” Defence and Peace Economics 21, no. 5–6 (2010): 443–57.52. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism.53. Bandyopadhyay and Sandler, “The Interplay between Preemptive and Defensive Counterterrorism Measures”; Sandler and Lapan, “The Calculus of Dissent”; Sandler and Siqueira, “Global Terrorism.”54. Cárceles-Poveda and Tauman, “A Strategic Analysis of the War against Transnational Terrorism”; Andre R. de Oliveira, João R. Faria, and Emilson C. Silva, “Transnational Terrorism: Externalities and Coalition Formation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, no. 3 (2018): 496–528.55. Sandler and Siqueira, “Global Terrorism.”56. Brandt and Sandler, “What Do Transnational Terrorists Target?” 220–4.57. Vicki Bier, Santiago Oliveros, and Larry Samuelson, “Choosing What to Protect: Strategic Defensive Allocation against an Unknown Attacker,” Journal of Public Economic Theory 9, no. 4 (2007): 563–87.58. Bandyopadhyay and Sandler, “The Interplay between Preemptive and Defensive Counterterrorism Measures.”59. Blomberg et al., “The Macroeconomic Consequences of Terrorism.”60. Jose Tavares, “The Open Society Assesses Its Enemies: Shocks, Disasters and Terrorist Attacks,” Journal of Monetary Economics 51, no. 5 (2004): 1039–70.61. S. Brock Blomberg, Nzinga H. Broussard, and Gregory D. Hess, “New Wine in Old Wineskins? Growth, Terrorism and the Resource Curse in sub-Saharan Africa,” European Journal of Political Economy 27, no. Suppl. (2011): S50–S63; Khusrav Gaibulloev and Todd Sandler, “Growth Consequences of Terrorism in Western Europe,” Kyklos 61, no. 3 (2008): 411–24; Khusrav Gaibulloev and Todd Sandler, “Impact of Terrorism and Conflicts on Growth in Asia,” Economics & Politics 21, no. 3 (2009): 359–83; Khusrav Gaibulloev and Todd Sandler, “The Adverse Effect of Transnational and Domestic Terrorism on Growth in Africa,” Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 3 (2011): 355–71.62. Gaibulloev and Sandler, “Impact of Terrorism and Conflicts on Growth in Asia”; Gaibulloev and Sandler, “The Adverse Effect of Transnational and Domestic Terrorism on Growth in Africa.”63. Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, 290–8.64. Sandler and Enders, “Economic Consequences of Terrorism in Developed and Developing Countries.”65. Alberto Abadie and Javier Gardeazabal, “The Economic Cost of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country,” American Economic Review 93, no. 1 (2003): 113–32; Zvi Eckstein and Daniel Tsiddon, “Macroeconomic Consequences of Terror: Theory and Case of Israel,” Journal of Monetary Economics 51, no. 5 (2004): 971–1002.66. Khusrav Gaibulloev, Todd Sandler, and Donggyu Sul, “Dynamic Panel Analysis under Cross-Sectional Dependence,” Political Analysis 22, no. 2 (2014): 258–73; Khusrav Gaibulloev and Todd Sandler, “Common Myths of Terrorism,” Journal of Economic Surveys 37, no. 2 (2023): 271–301.67. Gaibulloev and Sandler, “Common Myths of Terrorism.”68. Konstantinos Drakos and Andreas Gofas, “Regional Effects of Terrorism on Tourism in Three Mediterranean Countries,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 47, no. 5 (2003): 621–41; Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, “The Causality Between Transnational Terrorism and Tourism: The Case of Spain,” Terrorism: An International Journal 14, no. 1 (1991): 49–58; Walter Enders, Todd Sandler, and Gerry F. Parise, “An Econometric Analysis of the Impact of Terrorism on Tourism,” Kyklos 45, no. 4 (1992): 531–54.69. Enders et al., “An Econometric Analysis of the Impact of Terrorism on Tourism.”70. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, “Terrorism and Foreign Direct Investment in Spain and Greece,” Kyklos 49, no. 3 (1996): 331–52.71. Alberto Abadie and Javier Gardeazabal, “Terrorism and the World Economy,” European Economic Review 52, no. 1 (2008): 1–27; Bandyopadhyay et al., “Foreign Direct Investment, Aid, and Terrorism”; Walter Enders, Adolfo Sachsida, and Todd Sandler, “The Impact of Transnational Terrorism on US Foreign Direct Investment,” Political Research Quarterly 59, no. 4 (2006): 517–31.72. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, Todd Sandler, and Javed Younas, “Trade and Terrorism: A Disaggregated Approach,” Journal of Peace Research 55, no. 5 (2018): 656–70; S. Brock Blomberg and Gregory D. Hess, “How Much Does Violence Tax Trade?” Review of Economics and Statistics 88, no. 4 (2006): 599–612; Daniel Mirza and Thierry Verdier, “Are Lives a Substitute for Livelihoods? Terrorism, Security and US Bilateral Imports,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 6 (2014): 943–75; Volker Nitsch and Dieter Schumacher, “Terrorism and International Trade: An Empirical Investigation,” European Journal of Political Economy 20, no. 2 (2004): 423–33.73. Abel Brodeur, “The Effect of Terrorism on Employment and Consumer Sentiments: Evidence from Successful and Failed Terror Attacks,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10, no. 4 (2018): 246–82.74. Yunhao Dai, Raghavendra Rau, Aris Stouraitis, and Weiqiang Tan, “An Ill Wind? Terrorist Attacks and CEO Compensation,” Journal of Financial Economics 135, no. 2 (2020): 379–98.75. Seongjae Mun, Seung H. Han, and Hyeong J. Kim, “Terrorist Attacks and Total Factor Productivity,” Economics Letters 202, Article 109808 (2021): 1–5.76. Wukki Kim and Todd Sandler, “Does Transnational Terrorism Stimulate Foreign Assistance?” Conflict Management and Peace Science 40, no. 2 (2023): 187–206.77. Joseph K. Young and Michael G. Findley, “Can Peace Be Purchased? A Sectoral-Level Analysis of Aid’s Influence on Transnational Terrorism,” Public Choice 149, no. 3–4 (2011): 365–81.78. Rafat Mahmood and Michael Jetter, “Gone with the Wind: The Consequences of US Drone Strikes in Pakistan,” Economic Journal 133, no. 2 (2023): 787–81.79. Ibid.80. See, e.g., Daniel Meierrieks and Laura Renner, “Islamist Terrorism and the Status of Women,” European Journal of Political Economy 78, Article 102364 (2023): 1–19.81. Enders and Sandler, The Political Economy of Terrorism, 322–28.82. On the choice of terrorist groups’ base of operations, consult Khusrav Gaibulloev, “Terrorist Group Location Decision: An Empirical Investigation,” Oxford Economic Papers 67, no. 1 (2015): 21–41. On the application of spatial econometrics to terrorism, See Josiah Marineau, Henry Pascoe, Alex Braithwaite, Michael G. Findley, and Joseph K. Young, “The Local Geography of Transnational Terrorism,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 37, no. 3 (2020): 350–81. This article identifies five local-level factors that influence the location of transnational terrorism based on the geocoding of ITERATE. The article does not look at group survival issues based on groups’ base locations.83. Enders and Jindapon, “Network Externalities and the Structure of Terror Networks”; Walter Enders and Xuejuan Su, “Rational Terrorists and Optimal Network Structure,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no. 1 (2007): 33–57.Additional informationNotes on contributorsTodd SandlerTodd Sandler is Vibhooti Shukla Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has contributed articles and books on the economic study of terrorism since 1983. His articles on the topic has been published in the American Economic Review, American Political Science Review, Political Analysis, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Law and Economics, and elsewhere. He has consulted on the topic with the United Nations Development Program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and elsewhere.