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Are lives a substitute for livelihoods ? Terrorism, security, and U.S. bilateral imports

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Author Info
Mirza, Daniel
Verdier, Thierry

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Abstract

What is the impact of terrorism on trade through higher security at the borders? The authors set up a theory which shows that the impact goes not only from terrorism to trade. Higher trade with a partner might, in turn, increase the probability of terrorism acts and make security measures more costly for total welfare. To identify the true impact of terrorism, their theory allows for a strategy to condition out the latter mechanism. The authors show in particular how past incidents perpetrated in third countries (anywhere in the world except the origin or targeted country) constitute good exogenous factors for current security measures at the borders. Their tests suggest that terrorist incidents have a small effect on U.S. imports on average, but a much higher effect for those origin countries at the top of the distribution of incidents. In addition, the level of the impact is up to three times higher when the acts result ina relatively high number of victims, the products are sensitive to shipping time, and the size of the partner is small. The authors further show how terrorism affects the number of business visas given by the United States, thereby affecting significantly U.S. imports in differentiated products. These results suggest that security to prevent terrorism does matter for trade.

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Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 4094.

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Date of creation: 01 Dec 2006
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Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4094

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Related research
Keywords: International Terrorism&Counterterrorism; Transport Security; Economic Theory&Research; Country Strategy&Performance; Free Trade;

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  12. Mirza, Daniel & Verdier, Thierry, 2006. "International trade, security, and transnational terrorism : theory and empirics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4093, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  13. John F. Helliwell, 1994. "Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 4066, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. James E. Anderson & Douglas Marcouiller, 1997. "Trade and Security,I: Anarchy," NBER Working Papers 6223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger & Alois Stutzer, 2004. "Calculating Tragedy: Assessing the Costs of Terrorism," CREMA Working Paper Series 2004-23, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA). [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. James E. Anderson, 2008. "Terrorism, Trade and Public Policy," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 701, Boston College Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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