Bad Economy = Deadlier Terrorists

Here’s yet more evidence that a good economy is good news all around. In a new working paper, Efraim Benmelech, Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor have analyzed data (abstract here) on Palestinian suicide terrorists between 2000 and 2006 and found that “[h]igh levels of unemployment enable terror organizations to recruit more educated, mature and experienced suicide terrorists who in turn attack more important Israeli targets.” Interestingly, “poverty and economic conditions are not correlated with the quantity of terror.”?[%comments]