IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/5448.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Deadly Contests An economic note on al Qaeda’s reward system

Author

Listed:
  • Caruso, Raul
  • Locatelli, Andrea

Abstract

The aim of this brief paper is to interpret al Qaeda’s modus operandi in the light of the economic theory of contests. The main idea expressed here is that al Qaeda can be considered as a contest-designer rewarding an indivisible prize. Affiliated groups compete with each other to win the prize. The argument is discussed and some tentative policy prescriptions are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Caruso, Raul & Locatelli, Andrea, 2007. "Deadly Contests An economic note on al Qaeda’s reward system," MPRA Paper 5448, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:5448
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5448/1/MPRA_paper_5448.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/9466/1/MPRA_paper_9466.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela, 2008. "The Optimal Allocation of Prizes in Contests," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 615-631, Springer.
    2. Arye L. Hillman & John G. Riley, 1989. "Politically Contestable Rents And Transfers," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 17-39, March.
    3. Rosen, Sherwin, 1986. "Prizes and Incentives in Elimination Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 701-715, September.
    4. Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela & Xianwen Shi, 2007. "Contests for Status," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 338-363.
    5. Josh Lerner & Jean Tirole, 2002. "Some Simple Economics of Open Source," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 197-234, June.
    6. O'Keeffe, Mary & Viscusi, W Kip & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1984. "Economic Contests: Comparative Reward Schemes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 27-56, January.
    7. Nti, Kofi O., 2004. "Maximum efforts in contests with asymmetric valuations," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 1059-1066, November.
    8. Avinash Dixit, 2008. "Strategic Behavior in Contests," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 431-438, Springer.
    9. Nti, Kofi O, 1999. "Rent-Seeking with Asymmetric Valuations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 98(3-4), pages 415-430, March.
    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. Friedrich Schneider & Raul Caruso, 2011. "The (Hidden) Financial Flows of Terrorist and Transnational Crime Organizations: A Literature Review and Some Preliminary Empirical Results," Economics of Security Working Paper Series 52, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Caruso, Raul, 2008. "Al Qaeda as a Tournament: Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 11693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Caruso, Raul & Schneider, Friedrich, 2009. "Al Qaeda and Jihadist Terrorism in the Light of Contest Theory, Empirical Evidence for the period 2004-2008," MPRA Paper 15856, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Caruso, Raul & Schneider, Friedrich, 2009. "Al Qaeda and Jihadist Terrorism in the Light of Contest Theory, Empirical Evidence for the period 2004-2008," MPRA Paper 15856, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Raul Caruso, 2009. "The Basic Economics of Match Fixing in Sport Tournaments," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 355-377, December.
    3. Raul Caruso, 2008. "Reciprocity in the shadow of threat," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 55(1), pages 91-111, April.
    4. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    5. Caruso, Raul, 2007. "THE Economics of Match-Fixing," MPRA Paper 3085, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Caruso, Raul, 2008. "Al Qaeda as a Tournament: Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 11693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Cedric Duvinage & Peter-J. Jost, 2019. "The Role of Referees in Professional Sports Contests," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(8), pages 1014-1050, December.
    8. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    9. Raul Caruso, 2009. "Spesa pubblica e criminalità organizzata in Italia: evidenza empirica su dati Panel nel periodo 1997-2003," Economia & lavoro, Carocci editore, issue 1, pages 1-73.
    10. Pradeep Dubey & Siddhartha Sahi, 2016. "Optimal Prizes," Department of Economics Working Papers 16-03, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    11. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    12. Markus LANG & Alexander RATHKE & Marco RUNKEL, 2010. "The Economic Consequences Of Foreigner Rules In National Sports Leagues," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 31, pages 47-64.
    13. Kyung Hwan Baik & Jong Hwa Lee, 2013. "Endogenous Timing In Contests With Delegation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(4), pages 2044-2055, October.
    14. Pradeep Dubey & Siddhartha Sahi, 2009. "The Allocation of a Prize," Department of Economics Working Papers 09-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    15. Hoffmann, Magnus & Rota-Graziosi, Grégoire, 2012. "Endogenous timing in general rent-seeking and conflict models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 168-184.
    16. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    17. Sakshi Gupta & Ram Singh, 2018. "On Existence and Properties of Pure-strategy Equilibria under Contests," Working Papers id:12840, eSocialSciences.
    18. André de Palma & Soumyanetra Munshi, 2012. "Multi-player, Multi-prize, Imperfectly Discriminating Contests," Working Papers hal-00683688, HAL.
    19. Cason, Timothy N. & Masters, William A. & Sheremeta, Roman M., 2020. "Winner-take-all and proportional-prize contests: Theory and experimental results," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 314-327.
    20. Bastani, Spencer & Giebe, Thomas & Gürtler, Oliver, 2022. "Simple equilibria in general contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 264-280.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    terrorism; contest; al Qaeda; open source; reward; prize setting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions

    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:pra:mprapa:5448. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.