Analysis of the Impact of Terrorism and crime on the public expenditures in MENAP Countries; Application of the Spatial Panel Regression Approach
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Article Type:
Research/Original Article (دارای رتبه معتبر)
Abstract:

Transnational terrorism is a form of terrorism that affects more than one country through a variety of possible channels. Few empirical studies conducted in this scope attempted to establish a relationship between the source of the source of transnational terrorism and other known variables. Therefore, due to the reemergence of crime and terrorist attacks during the recent years in MENAP member countries, this paper attempted to examine the spatial effects of these two variables on the public expenditures of the selected MENAP member countries during 2003 to 2016 using spatial panel regression analysis. The results of the study confirmed the effects of spatial spillovers, meaning that the increase in crime and terrorism in a country has a positive and significant impact on both public expenditures and terrorism and crime in neighboring countries. On the other hand, the distinction between direct and indirect effects of the variables in the model confirmed the greater effects of the indirect determinants.

Introduction 

A crucial factor in economic development and welfare is social security. Security is not only a part of the welfare of society but it also is a critical basis for investment and economic growth. However, crimes and terrorism are detrimental to security, leading to a decline in investment and growth on the one hand and imposing high costs to the private and public sectors on the other hand(capaso,2004). Evidence in Global Terrorism Database about the terrorism and crime level in the world and the MENAP region show a sharp increase in the frequency of terrorist attacks and crimes in the world and the MENAP region since 2004. For example, the number of terrorist attacks in the Middle East has increased by 45 percent in 2012 versus 2011 so that they account for 28.6 percent of total terrorist attacks in the world. The UN reports that the number of arrested criminals is increased in the MENAP region so that the highest rate of crime in Libya was 309 individuals per thousand in 2004 and the lowest for Yemen was 0.30 for the years from 2003 to 2006. Since the state is responsible to supply security in all countries and according to what was explained about the status of terrorism and crime in the countries of the MENAP region, the present study aims to answer the question as to whether the spatial spillover of crime and terrorism affects public expenditure of these countries.

Methodology 

The present work is an applied study in terms of objective and a descriptive-analytical study in terms of inference methodology. Also, it is retrospective in terms of research design whose results can be directly used in decision-making. This is an experimental field study in terms of data collection methodology. It uses panel data from the temporal trend and different countries. The statistical population is composed of the countries of the MENAP region. The sample is composed of the selected countries of this region (Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, the UAE, and Yemen) whose data are collected on a yearly basis in the time period of 2003-2016 given the availability of data. The econometric method of the study is of spatial econometric type, and data are analyzed with the Stata software package. To get to know the literature and theoretical framework, the publications are reviewed.

Discussion

The basic economic analysis of terrorism posits that terrorists are reasonable actors that maximize the utility function from the internal perspective. It is assumed that their behavior is profitable and the disposition that they adopt is likely to have more profits than costs (kyllan,2006). Crime is a social phenomenon that has been studied in many disciplines, such as law, sociology, psychology, economy, and biology. Article 2 of the Islamic Penal Code defines crime as ‘any conduct, including action or omission, for which punishment is provided by law’. Also, according to any school of thought, the unilateral or reciprocal connections of a crime with other influencing and influenced factors are examined (Sadeghi et al., 2005). The phenomenon of “dynamic insecurity” has important implications for the concept of “security” and its supply. The enhancement of awareness of an issue and its potential goals in order to improve the systematic resilience and the capability to minimize the adverse impacts of an event can be close to the concept of security. The impact of personal security investment is partially dependent on the security investments of the other factors. Decisions to invest in security have a reciprocal effect on the expected actions of other factors. The consequences of an insecuring attack depend on personal behavior. If an investor does not show a willingness to take action against insecurity, the chain of the likely consequences will be disrupted and vice versa (fruter,2003). The second inhibitor of the concept of security supply is the nature of security as a public commodity. Since security produces a lot of public benefits for the community, some investors may avoid personal involvement in the hope for its public procurement, and this, in turn, complicates the economic calculations of security and confrontation with insecurity. Terrorism and crimes are intrusive of security and since security is a public commodity whose supply is the responsibility of the state and public sector, so it is quite reasonable to address the relationship of terrorism and crime with public expenditure. This is the aim of this paper.

Conclusion 

An instance of transnational terrorism is those terrorist groups whose members are attracted from different countries or whose field of action covers different countries. The experimental studies attempt to establish a relationship between the origins of a transnational terrorist center and the known variables. Given the increased number of crime and terrorist attacks in the countries of the MENAP region in recent years, this paper examines the effect of spatial impacts of these two issues on the public expenditure of the selected countries in the 2003-2016 period using a panel spatial regression. The results of the spatial regression reveal that both crime and terrorism influence public expenditure of the studied countries positively and significantly. This implies that crime and terrorist attacks in one country increase these variables and public expenditure in neighboring countries and that the impacts of spatial spillover of these variables are confirmed in the studied countries. The nature of terrorism has a self-strengthening mechanism both temporally and spatially. First, terrorism experience entails new terrorism – i.e. temporal transmission. Second, if a country or region is suffering from terrorism, the other and neighboring countries are usually influenced by its consequences too – i.e. spatial transmission. For example, emerging terrorist groups use the experiences of older groups in neighboring countries. In addition, the cooperation of terrorist organizations with one another reduces their expenses. For example, knowledge sharing enhances the probability and extent of achievements by inherent synergy and by resorting to more fierce actions. Therefore, because temporal and spatial closeness plays a significant role in cost and profit considerations of violence generation, it is recommended to the government to consider regional conditions in assigning public expenditure and its composition. The results of the spatial regression for the direct and indirect impacts reveal that the indirect impacts of organized anti-security actions are much more than their direct impacts. Some examples of the detrimental impacts of organized anti-security actions include the disruption of demand order, unexpected changes in and discontinuation of supply chains, the costs arising from the use of more stringent security policies, and macroeconomic variables. Furthermore, the governmental institutions and enterprises are responsible to identify these factors and the dynamics of the impacts and vectors in order to get involved in constructive intervention.

Language:
Persian
Published:
Journal of Subcontinent Researches, Volume:12 Issue: 38, 2020
Pages:
89 to 108
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