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The purpose of this study is to define the interactions that determine how secure a society is from terrorism and to propose a method for measuring the threat of terrorism in an objective and spatio-temporally comparable manner.

Game-theoretic analysis of the determinants of security and discussion of how to implement these interactions into a measure of security.

We show that governments concerned with popularity have an incentive to over-invest in security and that, in certain situations, this leads to a deterioration in net security position. Our discussion provides an implementable means for measuring the levels of threat and protection, as well as individuals’ perceptions of both, which we propose can be combined into an objective and scientific measure of security.

The implication for researchers is the suggestion that efficiency, as well as scale of counter-terrorism, is important in determining a country’s overall security position. Furthermore, we suggest that individuals’ perceptions are at least as important in determining suitable counter-terrorism policy as objective measures of protection and threat. The limitations of this research are found in the vast data requirements that any attempt to measure security will need.

We propose the first method for objectively measuring the net security position of a country, using economic and econometric means.

The purpose of this contribution is to review the theoretical and empirical literature on the economic determinants of terrorism.

Review of the relevant academic literature.

This contribution shows that there is a theoretical foundation to the popular hypothesis that poor economic conditions are conducive to terrorism. A review of the empirical evidence on the economic determinants of terrorism, however, yields an inconclusive result. Some studies find that economic conditions (directly and indirectly) matter to terrorism, whereas a plurality of studies suggest that noneconomic factors are more important.

The findings of the survey indicate that it is unlikely that economic conditions are universal determinants of terrorism. By pointing at several avenues of future research (e.g., a focus on the role of ideology in terrorism), this contribution, however, argues that the opposite also does not need to be true. The influence of economic factors on terrorism should neither be overemphasized nor completely ruled out.

The contribution offers a comprehensive overview of the economy–terrorism nexus and hints at promising areas of future research.

One of the many paradoxes of fashions is that consumers’ choices change rapidly and with an astonishing degree of synchronization. What is successful or socially acceptable in one period is considered the opposite in the next. This paradox has brought economists and other social scientists to conceive of fashions and fads as one of many forms of irrational behavior. Herd behavior and weakness of will, a desire to conform or, conversely, to distinguish oneself, have all been invoked to explain the rapid evolution of modes of behavior that emerge and more or less suddenly disappear. In this paper we try to show that fashions, even if fragile and transient, might nonetheless be rational. It is a rationality, however, that has to include something overlooked in most economic writing: the desire for novelty and variety. In fashions this desire takes the form of coordinated behavior that both facilitates consumption and destroys its novel content, thus paving the way for new fashions to appear.

The widespread introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops may change the effect of agriculture on the environment. The magnitude and direction of expected effects are still being hotly debated, and the interests served in this discussion arena are often far from those of science and social welfare maximization. This chapter proposes that GM crops have net positive environmental effects, while regulatory responses focus mainly on environmental concerns, giving an unbalanced picture of the regulatory context. This unbalance supports the hypothesis that environmental concerns about GM crops have been politically instrumentalized and that more attention should be paid to regulatory responses considering the environmental benefits of this technology. It is also argued that a number of environmental effects have not yet been quantified and more research is needed in this direction.