Human Development, Main Macroeconomic Variables and Terrorism in Middle East and North Africa: A Panel Causality Analysis

Abstract

Terrorism has still a serious problem for many countries despite the improvements in combat with terrorism during the recent years. Many institutional, economic, and social factors have been documented as the possible causes of terrorism in the related literature. This research explores the reciprocal interaction between human development, main macroeconomic variables of real GDP per capita, unemployment, youth unemployment, and inflation and terrorism in Middle East and North African countries over the 2005-2019 period through causality analysis with cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. The causality analysis discovered a reciprocal interaction between human development, unemployment, youth unemployment, inflation and terrorism and a significant causality from real GDP per capita to the terrorism.

Keywords

• Human development
• real GDP per capita
• unemployment
• inflation
• Middle East and North African countries

Ortadoğu ve Kuzey Afrika'da İnsani Gelişme, Temel Makroekonomik Değişkenler ve Terörizm: Bir Panel Nedensellik Analizi

Abstract

Son yıllarda terörizm ile mücadelede ilerlemeler kaydedilmesine rağmen, terörizm hala birçok ülke için ciddi bir sorundur. İlgili literatürde çok sayıda kurumsal, ekonomik ve sosyal faktör terörizmin olası nedenleri olarak tespit edilmiştir. Bu çalışmada yatay kesit bağımlılığını dikkatte alan nedensellik testi kullanılarak 2005-2019 döneminde orta Doğu ve Kuzey Afrika ülkelerinde insani gelişme, kişi başına GSYİH, işsizlik ve genç işsizilik ve enflasyon temel makro ekonomik değişkenleri ile terörizm arasındaki karşılıklı etkileşimi araştırılmıştır. Nedensellik analizi sonucunda insani gelişme, işsizlik, genç işsizlik, enflasyon ve terörizm arasında karşılıklı bir etkileşim ve kişi başına düşen reel GSYİH'den terörizme doğru tek yönlü bir nedensellik ilişkisi tespit edilmiştir.

Keywords

• İnsani gelişme
• kişi başına düşen reel GSYİH
• işsizlik
• enflasyon
• Orta Doğu ve Kuzey Afrika ülkeleri
• panel nedensellik analizi.

References

1. Bayar, Y., Gavriletea, M.D. (2018). Peace, terrorism and economic growth in Middle East and North African countries. Qual Quant, 52, 2373–2392. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0671-8
2. Breusch, T.S. & Pagan, A.R. (1980). The lagrange multiplier test and its applications to model specification tests in econometrics. Review of Economic Studies, 47(1), 239–253. https://doi.org/10.2307/2297111
3. Emirmahmutoglu, F., Kose, N. (2011). Testing for Granger causality in heterogeneous mixed panels. Economic Modelling, 28, 870-876.
4. Enders, W., Hoover, G. A., Sandler, T. (2016). The changing nonlinear relationship between income and terrorism. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 60(2), 195–225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002714535252
5. Feridun, M., Shahbaz, M. (2010). Fighting terrorism: Are military measures effective? Empirical evidence from Turkey. Defence and Peace Economics, 21(2), 193–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/10242690903568884
6. Fisher, R. A. (1932). Statistical methods for research workers (4th Edition). Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh.
7. Freytag, A., Krüger, J.J., Meierrieks, D. (2010). The origins of terrorism: Cross-country estimates on socio-economic determinants of terromrism. Economics of Security Working Paper, No. 27, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung.(DIW), Berlin.
8. Im, K., Pesaran, H., Shin, Y. (2003). Testing for unit roots in heterogenous panels. Journal of Econometrics, 115, 53–74.

9. IMF (2021). World Economic Outlook Database, April 2021, Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2021/April Last accessed on 12.02.2021
10. Institute for Economics & Peace (2020). Global Terrorism Index 2020: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism, Sydney, Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/reports (accessed 12.02.2021).
11. Institute for Economics & Peace (2021). Retrieved from https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/global-terrorism-index/#/12.02.2021
12. Ismail, A., Amjad, S. (2014). Determinants of terrorism in Pakistan: An empirical investigation. Economic Modelling, 37, 320–331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2013.11.012
13. Khan N.H., Ju Y., Hassan S.T. (2018). Modeling the impact of economic growth and terrorism on the human development index: collecting evidence from Pakistan. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int., 25(34):34661-34673. doi: 10.1007/s11356-018-3275-5.
14. Mahmud, S.F. (2020). The impact of terrorism on human development in Iraq. Global Journal of Management & Economics, 1, 29-41.
15. Meierrieks, D., Gries, T. (2013). Causality between terrorism and economic growth. Journal of Peace Research, 50(1), 91–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343312445650
16. Nasir, M., Ali, A., Rehman, F.U. (2011). Determinants of terrorism: A panel data analysis of selected south Asian countries. Singapore Economic Review, 56(2), 175-187. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217590811004225
17. Nurunnabi, M., Sghaier, A. (2018). Socioeconomic determinants of terrorism. Digest of Middle East Studies, 27(2), 278-302. https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12139
18. Ozcan, G., Karter, C. (2020). The relationship of economic growth and terrorism with the human development index. Technium Social Sciences Journal, 11, 226-234.
19. Pesaran, M. H. (2004). General diagnostic tests for cross section dependence in panels. University of Cambridge, Working Paper, CWPE 0435.
20. Pesaran, M. H. (2007). A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 22(2), 265-312.
21. Pesaran, M. H., & Yamagata, T. (2008). Testing slope homogeneity in large panels. Journal of Econometrics, 142(1), 50–93.
22. Pesaran, M.H., Ullah, A., & Yamagata, T. (2008). A bias-Adjusted LM test of error cross-section independence. Econometrics Journal, 11(1), 105–127.
23. Shahbaz, M. (2013). Linkages between inflation, economic growth and terrorism in Pakistan. Economic Modelling, 32, 496–506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2013.02.014
24. Tahir, M. (2020). Terrorism and its determinants: Panel data evidence from 94 countries. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 15, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9660-x
25. Toda, H. Y. and Yamamoto T. (1995), Statistical inferences in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated processes. Journal of Econometrics, 66, 225‐250.
26. UNDP (2021). Human Development Index (HDI), Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi Last accessed on 10.02.2021
27. World Bank (2021a). GDP per capita (constant 2010 US$), Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD Last accessed on 10.02.2021
28. World Bank (2021b). Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate), Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS Last accessed on 10.02.2021
29. World Bank (2021c). Unemployment, youth total (% of total labor force ages 15-24) (modeled ILO estimate), Retrieved from hhttps://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS Last accessed on 10.02.2021
30. World Bank (2021a). Middle East and North Africa, Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/mena Last accessed on 10.02.2021
31. Yildirim, J., Öcal, N. (2013). Analysing the determinants of terrorism in Turkey using geographically weighted regression. Defence and Peace Economics, 24(3), 195-209, https://doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2012.695034