American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
American Economic Review
vol. 98,
no. 4, September 2008
(pp. 1591–1604)
Abstract
This paper examines the dynamics of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during the Second Intifada. Using data on the daily number of fatalities between September 2000 and January 2005, we estimate reaction functions for both Israelis and Palestinians and find evidence of Granger causality from Palestinian to Israeli violence, but not vice versa. This finding is consistent using either the incidence or level of fatalities and is robust to the specification of the lag structure and the level of time aggregation. We find no evidence that the Palestinians and Israelis are engaged in a predictable "tit-for-tat" cycle of violence. (JEL D74, H56, O17)Citation
Jaeger, David A., and M. Daniele Paserman. 2008. "The Cycle of Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict." American Economic Review, 98 (4): 1591–1604. DOI: 10.1257/aer.98.4.1591Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D74 Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances
- H56 National Security and War
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements