Papers by S Brock Blomberg
European Journal of Political Economy, 2000
American Economic Review, 2000
Diversity of opinion is an endemic feature of society. Different people can hold divergent opinio... more Diversity of opinion is an endemic feature of society. Different people can hold divergent opinions on a subject. They can also differ in the intensity with which they hold their opin-ions. Some people are vehement and uncompro-mising. Their views seem relatively impervious to ...
Review of Economics and Statistics, 2006
We investigate the empirical impact of violence as compared to other trade impediments on trade f... more We investigate the empirical impact of violence as compared to other trade impediments on trade flows. Our analysis is based on a panel data set with annual observations on 177 countries from 1968 to 1999, which brings together information from the Rose [2004] dataset, the ITERATE dataset for terrorist events, and datasets of external and internal conflict. We explore these data with traditional and theoretical gravity models. We calculate that, for a given country year, the presence of terrorism, as well as internal and external conflict is equivalent to as much as a 30 percent tariff on trade. This is larger than estimated tariffequivalent costs of border and language barriers and tariff-equivalent reduction through GSPs and WTO participation.
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2002
Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2004
... model is used to analyze the question of why economic reforms come from within: we adopt and ... more ... model is used to analyze the question of why economic reforms come from within: we adopt and extend his framework, combined with ... The rewards from successful rebellion are greater than the rewards from successful terrorism so in general we would expect that the payoff to ...
Journal of International Economics, 1997
Standard exchange rate models perform poorly in out-of-sample forecasting when compared to the ra... more Standard exchange rate models perform poorly in out-of-sample forecasting when compared to the random walk model. We posit part of the poor performance of these models may be due to omission of political factors. We test this hypothesis by including political variables that capture party-specific, election-specific and candidate-specific characteristics. Surprisingly, we find our political model outperforms the random walk in
European Journal of Political Economy, 2009
Since 1995, growth in sub-Saharan Africa has averaged more than 5% per year reversing a twodecade... more Since 1995, growth in sub-Saharan Africa has averaged more than 5% per year reversing a twodecade decline of real income per capita. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the nascent growth is sustainable or not due to higher incidences of terrorism and commodity price declines. Our analysis is based on a rich unbalanced panel data set with annual observations on 46 countries from 1968 to 2004. We explore these data with cross-sectional and panel growth regression analysis and quantile regressions. We estimate the economic and statistical effect of terrorism on growth in sub-Saharan Africa, controlling for a variety of other factors. We then investigate the extent to which there appears to be a structural break in the estimated relationships. We find that the terrorist-oriented fragility of sub-Sahara has increased in the most recent period. We find that most of the fragility can be explained by the growth in countries that are primary fuel exporters. Indeed, our evidence points to the fact that resourcerich countries have not done an adequate job of investing in counter-terrorist policies.
This paper provides an original study into how democratization and globalization influence terror... more This paper provides an original study into how democratization and globalization influence terrorism -examining the motives of terrorists and how democratic institutions and international integration influence non-state economic actors. We employ a gravity model to investigate the relative importance of globalization and democratization on transnational terrorism. We construct an original database of over 200,000 observations from for 179 countries, to examine the extent to which economic, political and historical factors influence the likelihood of citizen's from one country to engage in terrorist activities against another. We find that the advent of democratic institutions, high income and more openness in a source country significantly reduces terrorism. However, the advent of these same positive developments in targeted countries actually increases terrorism. Ceteris paribus, the impact of being a democracy or participating in the WTO for a source country decreases the number of terrorist strikes by about 2 to 3 per year, which is more than two standard deviations greater than the average number of strikes between any two countries in a given year.
In this paper, we develop and explore the implications of an economic model that links the incide... more In this paper, we develop and explore the implications of an economic model that links the incidence of terrorism in a country to the economic circumstances facing that country. We briefly sketch out a theory, in the spirit of , that describes terrorist activities as being initiated by groups that are unhappy with the current economic status quo, yet unable to bring about drastic political and institutional changes that can improve their situation. Such groups with limited access to opportunity may find it rational to engage in terrorist activities. The result is then a pattern of reduced economic activity and increased terrorism. In contrast, an alternative environment can emerge where access to economic resources is more abundant and terrorism is reduced. Our empirical results are consistent with the theory. We find that for democratic, high income countries, economic contractions (i.e. recessions) can provide the spark for increased probabilities of terrorist activities.
Review of Economics and Statistics, 2006
We investigate the empirical impact of violence as compared to other trade impediments on trade f... more We investigate the empirical impact of violence as compared to other trade impediments on trade flows. Our analysis is based on a panel data set with annual observations on 177 countries from 1968 to 1999, which brings together information from the Rose [2004] dataset, the ITERATE dataset for terrorist events, and datasets of external and internal conflict. We explore these data with traditional and theoretical gravity models. We calculate that, for a given country year, the presence of terrorism, as well as internal and external conflict is equivalent to as much as a 30 percent tariff on trade. This is larger than estimated tariffequivalent costs of border and language barriers and tariff-equivalent reduction through GSPs and WTO participation.
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2002
Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2004
... model is used to analyze the question of why economic reforms come from within: we adopt and ... more ... model is used to analyze the question of why economic reforms come from within: we adopt and extend his framework, combined with ... The rewards from successful rebellion are greater than the rewards from successful terrorism so in general we would expect that the payoff to ...
Journal of International Economics, 1997
Standard exchange rate models perform poorly in out-of-sample forecasting when compared to the ra... more Standard exchange rate models perform poorly in out-of-sample forecasting when compared to the random walk model. We posit part of the poor performance of these models may be due to omission of political factors. We test this hypothesis by including political variables that capture party-specific, election-specific and candidate-specific characteristics. Surprisingly, we find our political model outperforms the random walk in
European Journal of Political Economy, 2009
Since 1995, growth in sub-Saharan Africa has averaged more than 5% per year reversing a twodecade... more Since 1995, growth in sub-Saharan Africa has averaged more than 5% per year reversing a twodecade decline of real income per capita. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the nascent growth is sustainable or not due to higher incidences of terrorism and commodity price declines. Our analysis is based on a rich unbalanced panel data set with annual observations on 46 countries from 1968 to 2004. We explore these data with cross-sectional and panel growth regression analysis and quantile regressions. We estimate the economic and statistical effect of terrorism on growth in sub-Saharan Africa, controlling for a variety of other factors. We then investigate the extent to which there appears to be a structural break in the estimated relationships. We find that the terrorist-oriented fragility of sub-Sahara has increased in the most recent period. We find that most of the fragility can be explained by the growth in countries that are primary fuel exporters. Indeed, our evidence points to the fact that resourcerich countries have not done an adequate job of investing in counter-terrorist policies.
This paper provides an original study into how democratization and globalization influence terror... more This paper provides an original study into how democratization and globalization influence terrorism -examining the motives of terrorists and how democratic institutions and international integration influence non-state economic actors. We employ a gravity model to investigate the relative importance of globalization and democratization on transnational terrorism. We construct an original database of over 200,000 observations from for 179 countries, to examine the extent to which economic, political and historical factors influence the likelihood of citizen's from one country to engage in terrorist activities against another. We find that the advent of democratic institutions, high income and more openness in a source country significantly reduces terrorism. However, the advent of these same positive developments in targeted countries actually increases terrorism. Ceteris paribus, the impact of being a democracy or participating in the WTO for a source country decreases the number of terrorist strikes by about 2 to 3 per year, which is more than two standard deviations greater than the average number of strikes between any two countries in a given year.
In this paper, we develop and explore the implications of an economic model that links the incide... more In this paper, we develop and explore the implications of an economic model that links the incidence of terrorism in a country to the economic circumstances facing that country. We briefly sketch out a theory, in the spirit of , that describes terrorist activities as being initiated by groups that are unhappy with the current economic status quo, yet unable to bring about drastic political and institutional changes that can improve their situation. Such groups with limited access to opportunity may find it rational to engage in terrorist activities. The result is then a pattern of reduced economic activity and increased terrorism. In contrast, an alternative environment can emerge where access to economic resources is more abundant and terrorism is reduced. Our empirical results are consistent with the theory. We find that for democratic, high income countries, economic contractions (i.e. recessions) can provide the spark for increased probabilities of terrorist activities.
Public Choice, 2009
Heroism emerges when individual decisions are coupled with public rewards for heroic actions, mak... more Heroism emerges when individual decisions are coupled with public rewards for heroic actions, making heroism akin to the voluntary provision of a highly specialized public good. In the past 35 years, however, the number of heroes has fallen considerably as reflected by military honors such as the Congressional Medal of Honor. Our model, which seeks to explain heroism in a rational decision-making framework, suggests that an observed decline in heroism can be explained on the basis of optimal individual and social responses, rather than as an arbitrary change in the governmental rewards for heroism.
European Journal of Political Economy, 2004
We explore the links between the incidence of terrorism and the state of a country's economy. Gro... more We explore the links between the incidence of terrorism and the state of a country's economy. Groups that are unhappy with the current economic status quo, yet unable to bring about drastic institutional changes, may find it rational to engage in terrorist activities. The result is a pattern of reduced economic activity and increased terrorism. In contrast, an alternative environment can emerge where access to economic resources is more abundant and terrorism is reduced. Our empirical results are consistent with the theory. We find that for democratic, high income countries, economic contractions lead to increased likelihood of terrorist activities. D
Defence and Peace Economics, 2011
This paper presents an empirical analysis of what drives congressional legislation on terrorism d... more This paper presents an empirical analysis of what drives congressional legislation on terrorism during the period 1995 to 2010. We utilize and augment current methodology to compile and analyze data on sponsorship and cosponsorship of terrorism related data. Our results on the sources of legislation on terrorism are largely in line with past examinations of the importance of committee membership
We perform an empirical investigation of the macroeconomic consequences of international terroris... more We perform an empirical investigation of the macroeconomic consequences of international terrorism and interactions with alternative forms of collective violence. Our analysis is based on a rich unbalanced panel data set with annual observations on 177 countries from 1968 to 2000, which brings together information from the Penn World , the ITERATE dataset for terrorist events, and datasets of external and internal conflict. We explore these data with cross-sectional and panel growth regression analysis and a structural VAR model. We find that, on average, the incidence of terrorism may have an economically significant negative effect on growth, albeit one that is considerably smaller and less persistent than that associated with either external wars or internal conflict. As well, terrorism is associated with a redirection of economic activity away from investment spending and towards government spending. However, our investigation also suggests important differences both regarding the incidence and the economic consequences of terrorism among different sets of countries. In OECD economies, in particular, terrorist incidents are considerably more frequent than in other nations, but the negative influence of these incidents on growth is smaller.
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Papers by S Brock Blomberg