Inflation, inflation volatility and terrorism in Africa

Abstract

Can inflation or inflation volatility incites terrorism? This question is salient as there is a latent belief that both can actually produce hardships for people, making them to be economically deprived and aggrieved, thereby reducing their opportunity costs of rebellion against the incumbent government. This study answers the above raised question using a negative binomial regression on 38 African economies over the period 1980-2012, in which the following findings are established. Inflation volatility and not inflation per se constitutes a significant predictor of terrorism, particularly, for the domestic terrorist activity over the period of coverage. The prevailing impacts of other confounding variables such as surface areas, ethnicity, physical integrity rights, as well as the lagged value of terrorism are consistently notable across the model specifications. Thus, the paper argues that the non-statistical significance of inflation does not render it less important as it offers the enabling condition that makes inflation volatility to thrive.

Do Institutional Quality and Terrorism Affect the Natural Resources Rents?

“…This indicates that an increase in terrorism attacks worsens natural resources rents in Africa. This is consistent with the findings of Ajide and Alimi (2021a); Alimi and Ajide (2021); Ajide and Alimi (2022), Ajide and Alimi (2021b). In terms of magnitude, transnational terrorism has more impact on total natural resources rents than other terrorism indicators used.…”

Does Disparity in Income and Consumption Ever Incite Terrorism in Africa?

“…For this study, the total number of the yearly incidents of terrorist activities is categorized into four: domestic, transnational, unclear, and total. Some previous studies that have also used these categorizations include Asongu and Nwachukwu (2017a, 2017b), Ajide (2019), Ajide and Raheem (2020), Ajide, Adenuga and Raheem (2020), and Ajide and Alimi (2021a, 2021b). Domestic terrorism takes account of the yearly occurrence of terrorist actions involving the inhabitants of the home country.…”

“…Similarly, the existing literature has only focused on the following possible channels as feasible solution mechanisms: educational tools (Brockhoff, Krieger and Meierrieks 2015); military strategies (Feridun and Shahbaz 2010); assessment of terrorist behavior (Gardner 2007); publicity and freedom of the press (Hoffman, Shelton and Cleven 2013); and transparency (Bell et al 2014). The Africa‐centric literature, in particular, has mostly been devoted to examining issues such as: geopolitical fluctuations (Straus 2012); poverty and lack of politico‐economic freedom (Barros, Faria and Gil‐Alana 2008); impact on global warming (Price and Elu 2016); democracy and regime durability (Ajide 2019; Ajide and Raheem 2020); complementarity between inclusive development, military expenditure, and political stability (Asongu, Le Roux and Singh 2020); path‐dependent impact (Asongu et al 2019); the intersection of political regimes with natural resources (Ajide, Adenuga and Raheem 2020); competition among military companies in conflict termination (Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski 2013); inflation and inflation volatility (Ajide and Alimi 2021a); the African Union's role in combating terrorism (Ewi and Aning 2006); and bundled and unbundled roles of governance (Asongu and Biekpe 2018; Asongu et al 2019). Concerning policy relevance, it seems plausible that understanding the key drivers of terrorism could enable more effective counterterrorism measures than grounding such decisions on baseless criteria.…”