Assassinations: Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Israeli Counterterrorism Policy Using Stock Market Data
Since the outbreak of the Intifada in September 2000, the Israeli government has extensively employed a policy of assassinating members of Palestinian terrorist organizations. Theoretically, the net effect of an assassination on future terrorism is indeterminate because it embodies two conflicting effects: the assassination of a terrorist hurts his organization's capabilities, but may increase the motivation for future attacks. Our indirect, empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of assassinations for Isreali counterterrorism is based on Israeli stock market reactions to news of such operations. We rely on the fact that terrorism has had significant adverse effects on the Israeli economy and claim that the stock market should react positively to news about effective counterterrorism measures but negatively to news about counterproductive ones. We find that the market does not react to assassinations of low-ranked members of Palestinian terrorist organizations. The market does react strongly, however, to the assassinations of senior leaders of terrorist organizations: it declines following assassinations targeting senior political leaders but rises following assassinations of senior military leaders. To the extent that these reactions reflect expectations regarding future levels of terrorism they imply that the market perceives the first type of assassinations as counterproductive, but the second as an effective measure in combating terrorism.
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Volume (Year): 20 (2006)
Issue (Month): 2 (Spring)
Pages: 193-206
| Handle: | RePEc:aea:jecper:v:20:y:2006:i:2:p:193-206 |
| Note: | DOI: 10.1257/jep.20.2.193 |
| Contact details of provider: | Web page: https://www.aeaweb.org/jep/ Email: More information through EDIRC
|
| Order Information: | Web: https://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html |
References listed on IDEAS
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.:
- Berrebi, Claude & Klor, Esteban F, 2005. "The Impact of Terrorism Across Industries: An Empirical Study," CEPR Discussion Papers 5360, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- David A. Jaeger & M. Daniele Paserman, 2008.
"The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1591-1604, September.
- David A. Jaeger & M. Daniele Paserman, 2005. "The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," Working Papers 22, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
- Jaeger, David A & Paserman, M. Daniele, 2005. "The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," CEPR Discussion Papers 5320, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Jaeger, David A. & Paserman, M. Daniele, 2005. "The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," IZA Discussion Papers 1808, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Eckstein, Zvi & Tsiddon, Daniel, 2004.
"Macroeconomic Consequences of Terror: Theory and the Case of Israel,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
4427, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Eckstein, Zvi & Tsiddon, Daniel, 2004. "Macroeconomic consequences of terror: theory and the case of Israel," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 971-1002, July.
- Eldor, Rafi & Melnick, Rafi, 2004. "Financial markets and terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 367-386, June.
- Asaf Zussman & Noam Zussman & Morten Orregaard Nielsen, 2008. "Asset Market Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 84-115, 02.
- Cauley, Jon & Im, Eric Iksoon, 1988. "Intervention Policy Analysis of Skyjackings and Other Terrorist Incidents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 27-31, May.
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:20:y:2006:i:2:p:193-206. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jane Voros)
or (Michael P. Albert)If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.