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Working Paper
Terrorism, Trade and Welfare: Some Paradoxes and a Policy Conundrum
We present a standard trade model and show that terrorism can be trade inducing, starting from autarky. In addition, terrorism can be shown to be welfare augmenting for a group of nations. Finally, we present some qualitative conditions that identify when a nation?s trade volume may rise (or fall) in response to a greater incidence of terrorism. Our trade and welfare results point to potential difficulties in international coordination of counterterrorism policy because of terrorism?s differential impact across nations.
Journal Article
Trade and Terror: The Impact of Terrorism on Developing Countries
We discuss some of the economic costs of terrorism. There are myriads of other costs like destruction of infrastructure, flight of skilled workers (brain drain) and diversion of funds to counterterrorism (compared to funding of health, education, etc.). A comprehensive discussion of these costs is beyond the scope of this article. However, a greater understanding of terrorism-related damages can help governments and multilateral organizations (e.g., United Nations, World Bank) to better direct scarce resources to mitigate terrorism-related costs.
Working Paper
Foreign direct investment, aid, and terrorism: an analysis of developing countries
Using a dynamic panel data framework, we investigate the relationship between the two major forms of terrorism and foreign direct investment (FDI). We then analyze how these relationships are affected by foreign aid flows. The analysis focuses on 78 developing countries for 1984- 2008. Our findings suggest that all types of terrorism depress FDI. In addition, aid mitigates the negative effects of total and domestic terrorism on FDI; however, this is not the case for transnational terrorism. This finding highlights that different forms of terrorism call for tailoring mitigating strategies. ...
Journal Article
Terrorism, Trade, and Welfare
For a standard competitive trade model, the authors show that the incidence of terrorism in different nations can affect the pattern of trade. Nations with a greater incidence of terrorism will export goods that are more immune to terrorism-related disruptions, while importing more terrorism-impacted goods. In addition, terrorism can be welfare augmenting for some nations because of terms-of-trade externalities. Finally, the authors present some qualitative conditions that identify when a nation?s trade volume may rise (or fall) in response to a greater incidence of terrorism. Given the ...
Journal Article
Do countries with greater credit constraints receive more foreign aid?
Donor nations may recognize that some developing nations face credit constraints in the world capital market. This knowledge may prompt donors to increase aid flows to alleviate the constraint. In such a situation, flows of foreign aid and foreign loans to developing nations may be substitutes for each other. The authors use data from 114 aid-recipient countries over the 1997-2008 period to investigate the relationship between foreign aid and foreign loans. The central finding is that this relationship is negative, lending support to the substitution hypothesis.
Journal Article
Increasing political freedom may be key to reducing threats
The root causes of terrorism might not be poverty and lack of education, as many believe. Rather, the lack of civil liberties, political rights and the rule of law might be more influential.
Journal Article
Do donors care about declining trade revenue from liberalization? an analysis of bilateral aid allocation
Many developing-country governments rely heavily on trade tax revenue. Therefore, trade liberalization can be a potential source of significant fiscal instability and may affect government spending on development activities-at least in the short run. This article investigates whether donors use aid to compensate recipient nations for lost trade revenue or perhaps to reward them for moving toward freer trade regimes. The authors do not find empirical evidence supporting such motives. This is of some concern because binding government revenue constraints may hinder development prospects of some ...
Journal Article
Terrorism: A Threat to Foreign Direct Investment
Working Paper
Terms-of-Trade and Counterterrorism Externalities
This paper investigates the interplay of trade and terrorism externalities under free trade between a developed nation that exports a manufactured good to and imports a primary product from a developing nation. A terrorist organization targets both nations and reduces its attacks in response to a nation?s defensive counterterrorism efforts, while transferring some of its attacks abroad. Terms-of-trade considerations lead the developed nation to raise its counterterrorism level beyond the ?small-country? level, thus compounding its over provision of these measures. By contrast, the developing ...
Working Paper
On the substitutability between foreign aid and international credit
We examine the effect of relaxing a binding borrowing constraint for a recipient country on theamount of foreign aid it receives. We do so by developing a two-country, two-period trade-theoretic model. The relaxation of the borrowing constraint reduces the flow of foreign aid, suggesting that the donor views developing nations' access to international credit markets as a substitute for foreign aid.