Economists Are Getting Religion (Or, "How to buy off terrorists")

yahoo ^ | 12-1-04

[LouAvul]

.......snip.............

The economics of religion is founded on the belief that people are just as rational in their choices about religion as they are about, say, buying a car.

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The idea that religion involves rational choices extends even to suicide bombers who strike in the name of God. Studies show they are far from depressed loners or brainwashed robots. Instead, says Eli Berman, an associate professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego, suicide bombers typically are motivated young men -- and, rarely, women -- from average backgrounds.

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How should the West fight such terrorism? Berman says one approach would be to promote prosperity through freer markets, which would reduce the supply of potential bombers. Iannaccone gives another answer to the question in a paper called The Market for Martyrs that he presented earlier this year to the American Economic Assn. He argues that the supply of would-be terrorists is impossible to suppress. Instead, it makes sense to reduce demand by disrupting the "firms" that sponsor them.

While terrorism is getting lots of attention, economists are also studying how religions affect economic growth. Timur Kuran, a professor of economics and law and the King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought & Culture at the University of Southern California, argues that development in Muslim countries has been hindered historically by certain rules of the Koran. For instance, Koranic inheritance law long forbade a father from passing a business on to a favored son but required him to divvy up the legacy among all children (with daughters getting half-portions). That made it harder to set up corporations and stymied economic growth. Another oft-mentioned hurdle is the traditional prohibition on interest payments, but Kuran says there are ways to get around that.

[LouAvul]

Four points.

1) People are not "rational" regarding their choice of religion, hence, so many absurd religions.

2) Were not the 9/11 murderers from Saudi Arabia? And as such were financially well off?

3) King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought & Culture at the University of Southern California

What the ................??!!!

4) Sorry about the weird editing.

[Moral Hazard]

I got my degree in Economics from UCSD 2000 and don't remember an Eli Berman. He must be new.

If we assume the suicide bombers are "rational" and that they are bombing out of a perceived self interest in the thought that they will be rewarded in the afterlife, one effective response would be to eliminate that perception.

How? Bury all suicide bombers with a pig. In their superstition this would prevent them from going to heaven and eliminate the incentive.

[alessandrofiaschi]

A very useful link for this subject (click on the photo):

Let me know, Alessandro

[LouAvul]

How's this?

Just before World War I, General 'Blackjack' Pershing was stationed in the Philippines, where he was ordered to put down an Islamic insurgency movement.

Pershings troops captured fifty terrorists and had them tied to posts for execution.

Pershing ordered his men to slaughter two pigs in front of the now horrified terrorists. The soldiers soaked their bullets in pigs blood in full view of the fifty condemned terrorists.

Using the pig-soaked bullets, they executed forty-nine of them by firing squad. They dug a big hole, dumped in the bodies of the terrorists, and covered them in pig blood, entrails, etc., and covered over the grave.

Pershing let the fiftieth terrorist go. There wasn't another Islamic terrorist incident for forty-two years.

Last year, the Russians began wrapping the bodies of Chechen terrorists in pigskin before burial. It has had a significant effect on acts of terrorism against the Russian state by Islamic terrorists.

From here

[Jibaholic]

If we assume the suicide bombers are "rational" and that they are bombing out of a perceived self interest in the thought that they will be rewarded in the afterlife, one effective response would be to eliminate that perception.

Alternate, Saddam was giving the families of Palestinian suicide bombers $25,000, which is a small fortune to them. Thus, suicide bombers may actually help their reproductive future by seeing their brothers and sisters become wealthier. This could be tested -- do suicide bombers have more siblings than their peers?

[nw_arizona_granny]

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