The Cost of Living and Terror: Does Consumer Price Volatility Fuel Terrorism?

Abstract

Do fluctuations of consumer prices prompt terrorist activity? A latent assumption among conflict scholars is that price volatilities for basic consumer goods produce hardships for people that increase popular grievances, damage government legitimacy, and raise the chances for terrorism. In this study, I use a series of regression estimations to test volatility in consumer price indices for energy, housing, and foods as predictors of domestic and transnational terrorism in a cross section of countries. I produce several findings. First, food price fluctuations are significant predictors of multiple measures of terrorism, while energy and housing prices are not. Second, rapid food price increases, not decreases, promote terrorist attacks. Third, the relationship between food price volatility and terrorism is most consistently present in nondemocratic and “hybrid” political regimes and in medium human development countries rather than in democracies or in countries characterized by very high or very low economic development.

The role of inclusive development and military expenditure in modulating the effect of terrorism on governance

“…While some of the existing literature does not provide a clear nexus between terrorism and inequality (see Piazza, 2006;Abadie, 2006;Li, 2005), another strand of the literature has established inequality to be a fundamental cause of terrorism (Piazza, 2011;. With regards to relationships between transnational (versus domestic terrorism) and inequality, it is believed that transnational terrorism is related to grievances in the foreign policy of developed countries (Savun & Phillips, 2009), while domestic terrorism is considerably affected by grievances of an economic nature (Piazza, 2013). Accordingly, there is a bulk of literature on the perspective that terrorism influences election anticipation, given that governing parties are likely to be punished by voters if adequate policies are not implemented to protect them against the externalities of terrorism (Berrebi & Klor, 2006;Siqueira & Sandler, 2007).…”

Noite de terror na cidade luz: os atos terroristas em Paris e a avaliação da imagem de destino por turistas brasileiros

“…Com o passar dos anos, e após sucessivos ataques, as medidas de proteção foram ficando mais duras e as instalações mais monitoradas (Piazza, 2013). Logo, houve aumento dos ataques aos alvos mais vulneráveis, no caso, transeuntes em ambientes públicos, onde o fluxo de turistas se enquadra.…”

Fighting terrorism in Africa when existing terrorism levels matter

“…While a stream of the literature does not establish a clear link between inequality and terrorism (Li, 2005;Abadie, 2006;Piazza, 2006), another stream of studies maintains that inequality strongly causes terrorism (Piazza, 2011;. As to linkages between domestic versus transnational terrorism and inequality, whereas domestic terrorism is substantially influenced by economic grievances (Piazza, 2013), transnational terrorism is fundamentally motivated by grievances pertaining to the foreign policy of rich democracies (Savun & Phillips, 2009).…”