Research


(job market paper)

Forming interorganizational alliances is a crucial means by which terrorist groups achieve economies of scale in pursuit of their goals. In this paper, I argue that the costs of scaling through alliance-formation are heterogeneous by the ideological affiliation of the group, whether religious or secular. Drawing from the economic theory of clubs, I suggest that ideology functions as a non-rival production technology that helps a group solve its free-rider problem. On a secondary level, however, a group's ideology also affects its costs of forming alliances. Analyzing a panel dataset containing detailed yearly information of over 250 militant organizations between the years 1970-2014, I estimate the benefits derived from alliances for both secular and religious groups, and find that religious groups obtain significantly greater benefits from alliances than secular groups, which I attribute to lower costs of cooperation. On average, the yearly fatality rate (measured as the number of inflicted fatalities per attack) for a religious groups with 5 allies is predicted to be 63% higher than a religious group with no allies. The fatality rate for a religious group with at least 10 allies is expected to be more than twice as high as a religious group with no allies. On the other hand, I find that while secular groups experience reasonably high returns for the first few alliances formed, they then receive negative returns to cooperation beyond 5 alliances. These results suggest that to the extent counterterrorism policies are aimed at disrupting terror networks, these policies should have the most significant impact when religious terror networks are targeted.


We study health insurance coverage mandates for young adults. Despite consistent findings that the Affordable Care Acts (ACA) federal mandate was effective, research has disagreed on whether pre-existing, state-level mandates were successful in increasing coverage. We reconsider the issue with a new analytical perspective and newly available, accurate data on state mandates. We show the impact of the state mandates was large, but focused among the 19 to 22 age group. Dependent coverage rose by about 6 percentage points and overall coverage rose by almost 3, with the difference explained by crowd out of public insurance. Crowd out of coverage through young adults own jobs was negligible. For those above 22, we find little evidence of changes in coverage. We incorporate these insights into analysis of the ACAs mandate, showing its effects were focused among those whom were previously ineligible for state mandates, or were eligible but older than 22.


I empirically test the club good model of terrorism. Despite an extensive theoretical literature identifying sacrifice and stigma and social service provision as key inputs into the production process by which terrorist organizations induce commitment, solve free riding problems, and mitigate defection concerns, the evidence in support of this hypothesis has been limited. Using a panel dataset containing all documented incidents of terror attacks from 2007-2013 at the state-year level, I empirically test the club good model by employing various observable proxies as exogenous shifters of the marginal product schedules of sacrifice and stigma and social service provision. This is based on the assumption that complying with the demands imposed on members by terrorist groups is costly, and hence an increase in the marginal product schedule will have the effect of screening out low-commitment members, improving group capacity in the production of violence. I examine the impact of the proxies on both overall terrorism and suicide terrorism. I find that sacrifice and stigma has a meaningful effect on both, with a larger quantitative impact on overall terrorism. However, I find that social service provision only has a significant effect on suicide terrorism, providing perhaps the most conclusive validation to date of one of the most compelling predictions made by club framework, namely that terror groups have a comparative advantage in sending operatives on risky suicide missions when they provide social services that create incentives mitigating defection.


What is the relationship between party politics and terrorism? In this study I examine the conditions that lead some political parties to adopt terrorist tactics, and, on the other hand, the conditions that make terrorist groups transition to electoral politics. Combining economic theory with case studies of militant organizations in Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Spain, Ireland, and South America, I analyze the interplay between terrorism and party politics based on the paradigm of rational choice theory. As economic agents pursuing political goals, terrorist organizations respond to prevailing political, social, and cultural incentives by adjusting their behavior accordingly. Thus, in pursuit of their goals rational terrorists will weigh the costs and benefits of the various tactics at their disposal, which include both terrorism and party politics, and will choose a combination of tactics that they expect optimizes political benefits. Within a supply and demand framework I consider the types of exogenous and endogenous events that may shift a political group's marginal costs and marginal benefits of committing violent acts in pursuit of its goals, and then use a selection of cases that offer valuable insights into the behavior of terrorist groups and political actors more broadly.