Does transnational terrorism stimulate foreign assistance?

Abstract

This paper quantifies how past transnational terrorist attacks against a potential donor's assets result in enhanced foreign aid flows to a country hosting the responsible terrorist group. Given the reversed causality between foreign aid and terrorism, our empirical analysis puts forward an instrumental variable. Both conflict and governance assistance are shown to stem from transnational terrorist incidents involving recipient–donor dyads during 1974–2013 for a global sample. For recipient-related terrorism, lagged transnational terrorist events against a donor's assets display a robust positive impact on conflict and governance aid. Placebo or falsification tests support the exogeneity of the instrument.