Psychology of Terrorism

A recent paper by three economists shows that Palestinian terrorist attacks that killed Jewish Israelis (civilian and military, in Israel the West Bank and Gaza) between ’02 and ‘04 had no effect, immediate or delayed, on the happiness of Jewish Israelis. The authors carefully controlled for gender, age, marital status, number of kids, education, health, religiosity, income and location of fatalities. This finding, and others like it, suggests rethinking the use of terrorism.