The Economic Costs of Separatist Terrorism in Turkey

Bibliographic Data

ID6284475
AuthorsFırat Bilgel (0000-0002-2585-5975, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business Administration, Okan University, Istanbul, Turkey, corresponding author), Burhan Can Karahasan (0000-0002-4624-9413, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Economics and Finance, Piri Reis University, Istanbul, Turkey)
Year2017
Volume61
Issue2
Pages457-479
Publication date2017-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022002715576572
OpenAlexW2151261751
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited43

Turkey has been suffering from separatist terrorism and the political conflict it implies since the mid-1980s, both of which are believed to have a negative impact on economic welfare. This article investigates the economic costs of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorism, particularly in the Eastern and Southeastern provinces of Turkey by invoking the synthetic control method. We create a synthetic control group that mimics the socioeconomic characteristics of the provinces exposed to terrorism before the PKK terrorism emerged in the mid-1980s. We then compare the real gross domestic product (GDP) of the synthetic provinces without terrorism to the actual provinces with terrorism for the period 1975 to 2001. Causal inference is carried out by comparing the real per capita GDP gap between the synthetic and actual provinces against the intensity of PKK terrorist activity. Extended over a period of fourteen years (1988 to 2001), we find that after the emergence of terrorism, the per capita real GDP in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia declined by about 6.6 percent relative to a comparable synthetic Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia without terrorism

Development economics · Domestic terrorism · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Gross domestic product · Per capita · Political science · Politics · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Terrorism · Demography · Economic Sanctions and International Relations · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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