Garoupa, Nuno; Klick, Jonathan; Parisi, Francesco --- "Terrorism" [2009] ELECD 468; in Garoupa, Nuno (ed), "Criminal Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Criminal Law and Economics

Editor(s): Garoupa, Nuno

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847202758

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: Terrorism

Author(s): Garoupa, Nuno; Klick, Jonathan; Parisi, Francesco

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

15 Terrorism*
Nuno Garoupa, Jonathan Klick and
Francesco Parisi


1. Introduction
Until recently, economic analysis of terrorist behavior was relatively
underdeveloped.1 However, given the recent focus of policymakers on
measures to fight terrorism, it may be useful to examine what insights
the field of economics has to offer to inform the development of counter-
terrorism policy. One of the most fruitful areas within economics to mine
for insights in this regard is the law and economics of criminal behavior.
In many (but certainly not all) ways, terrorist activities resemble criminal
activities, and so it might be useful to apply (and modify where necessary)
the economic models of crime in this area.
This chapter attempts to lay out the implications of the law and eco-
nomics literature on crime as they relate to terrorism.2 The economic
model of crime and law enforcement relies on the balance between the
benefits from offending and the respective costs in terms of probability
and severity of punishment, with respect to individuals (decision whether
or not to commit a crime) and society (design of optimal law enforcement)
to achieve efficient deterrence.3 The preferences of terrorists are very
important to an understanding of the benefits from offending (even if these


* This chapter updates a previous version published by the three authors in
Public Choice; N. Garoupa, J. Klick and F. Parisi (2006), `A Law and Economics
Perspective on Terrorism', Public Choice, 128 (1), 147­68, reproduced with kind
permission from Springer Science and Business ...