IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v202y2021ics0165176521000859.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Terrorist attacks and total factor productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Mun, Seongjae
  • Han, Seung Hun
  • Kim, Hyeong Joon

Abstract

This study examines the impact of terrorist attacks on total factor productivity (TFP). Using measures of attack proximity in the U.S., we find strong evidence that terrorist attacks overall reduce firm-level TFP. Specifically, the firms located near terrorist attacks experience a nearly 3.4% TFP decrease in standard deviation units. Our evidence is robust to a battery of additional tests, and the impact of terrorist attacks on TFP is more pronounced for high-competition industries and firms with high tangibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Mun, Seongjae & Han, Seung Hun & Kim, Hyeong Joon, 2021. "Terrorist attacks and total factor productivity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:202:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521000859
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109808
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176521000859
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109808?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bronwyn H. Hall, 1990. "The Manufacturing Sector Master File: 1959-1987," NBER Working Papers 3366, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Simon Luechinger & Alois Stutzer, 2007. "Calculating Tragedy: Assessing The Costs Of Terrorism," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 1-24, February.
    3. Raja, Usman & Azeem, Muhammad Umer & Haq, Inam Ul & Naseer, Saima, 2020. "Perceived threat of terrorism and employee outcomes: The moderating role of negative affectivity and psychological capital," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 316-326.
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2003. "Enjoying the Quiet Life? Corporate Governance and Managerial Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1043-1075, October.
    5. Bennett, Benjamin & Stulz, René & Wang, Zexi, 2020. "Does the stock market make firms more productive?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 281-306.
    6. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Kevin Caves & Garth Frazer, 2015. "Identification Properties of Recent Production Function Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 2411-2451, November.
    7. Inam Ul Haq & Usman Raja & Muhammad Umer Azeem & Saima Naseer, 2020. "Perceived threat of terrorism and employee outcomes: The moderating role of negative affectivity and psychological capital," Post-Print hal-03395416, HAL.
    8. Besley, Timothy & Fetzer, Thiemo & Mueller, Hannes, 2019. "Terror and Tourism: The Economic Consequences of Media Coverage," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 449, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    9. Llussá, Fernanda & Tavares, José, 2011. "Which terror at which cost? On the economic consequences of terrorist attacks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 52-55, January.
    10. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2003. "Computing Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 793-808, November.
    11. Francesco Amodio & Leonardo Baccini & Michele Di Maio, 0. "Security, Trade, and Political Violence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-37.
    12. Wang, Albert Y. & Young, Michael, 2020. "Terrorist attacks and investor risk preference: Evidence from mutual fund flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 491-514.
    13. Dai, Yunhao & Rau, P. Raghavendra & Stouraitis, Aris & Tan, Weiqiang, 2020. "An ill wind? Terrorist attacks and CEO compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 379-398.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Khusrav Gaibulloev & Todd Sandler, 2023. "Common myths of terrorism," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 271-301, April.
    2. Kim, Hyeong Joon & Han, Seung Hun & Mun, Seongjae, 2022. "Analyzing the effects of terrorist attacks on the value of cash holdings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    3. Huang, Wenxuan & Xu, Weidong & Gao, Xin & Li, Donghui & Fu, Wentao, 2023. "Terrorist attacks and CEO compensation: UK evidence," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Kim, Hyeong Joon & Mun, Seongjae, 2022. "Terrorist attacks and corporate investment: The beneficial value of CEO overconfidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kim, Hyeong Joon & Han, Seung Hun & Mun, Seongjae, 2022. "Analyzing the effects of terrorist attacks on the value of cash holdings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    2. Huang, Wenxuan & Xu, Weidong & Gao, Xin & Li, Donghui & Fu, Wentao, 2023. "Terrorist attacks and CEO compensation: UK evidence," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Kim, Hyeong Joon & Mun, Seongjae, 2022. "Terrorist attacks and corporate investment: The beneficial value of CEO overconfidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Wang, Albert Y. & Young, Michael, 2023. "Mood, attention, and household trading: Evidence from terrorist attacks," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Chen, Yangyang & Goyal, Abhinav & Veeraraghavan, Madhu & Zolotoy, Leon, 2020. "Terrorist attacks, investor sentiment, and the pricing of initial public offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    6. Zheng Liu & Ning Zhang, 2024. "The productivity effect of digital financial reporting," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 2350-2390, September.
    7. Bennett, Benjamin & Stulz, René & Wang, Zexi, 2020. "Does the stock market make firms more productive?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 281-306.
    8. Foubert, Killian & Ruyssen, Ilse, 2024. "Global migration and the role of terrorist attacks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 507-530.
    9. Kuang, Yu Flora & Qin, Bo & Yang, Xing, 2023. "We are under attack: Terrorist attacks and director turnover," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5).
    10. Yuan, Li & Rao, Siqi & Yang, Shenggang & Dai, Pengyi, 2023. "Does equity market openness increase productivity? the dual effects of Shanghai-Hong Kong stock Connect program in China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Fernández, Gastón P. & Rammer, Christian, 2023. "Artificial intelligence and firm-level productivity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 188-205.
    12. Zhang, Kaixia & Li, Weibing, 2024. "Understanding the puzzle of polluting companies' social responsibility," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Tung Nguyen & Dimitris Petmezas & Nikolaos Karampatsas, 2023. "Does Terrorism Affect Acquisitions?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4134-4168, July.
    14. Jetter, Michael, 2017. "Terrorism and the Media: The Effect of US Television Coverage on Al-Qaeda Attacks," IZA Discussion Papers 10708, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. To, Thomas Y. & Navone, Marco & Wu, Eliza, 2018. "Analyst coverage and the quality of corporate investment decisions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 164-181.
    16. Mehwish Majeed & Muhammad Irshad & Jos Bartels, 2021. "The Interactive Effect of COVID-19 Risk and Hospital Measures on Turnover Intentions of Healthcare Workers: A Time-Lagged Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-15, October.
    17. Kong, Dongmin & Xiong, Mengxu & Xiang, Junyi, 2021. "Terrorist attacks and energy firms' crash risk in stock markets: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    18. Alona Bilokha & Sudip Gupta, 2024. "Shareholder litigation rights and firm productivity," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(2), pages 65-90, May.
    19. Zhang, Wei & Wang, Pengfei & Li, Yi, 2021. "Do messages on online stock forums spur firm productivity?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    20. Erik Brynjolfsson & Wang Jin & Kristina McElheran, 2021. "The power of prediction: predictive analytics, workplace complements, and business performance," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 56(4), pages 217-239, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Terrorist attacks; Total factor productivity;

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:202:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521000859. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.