Citation

Hendel U. Def. Peace Econ. 2016; 27(5): 665-687.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10242694.2014.996006

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines the interaction between a growth-oriented terrorist organization and an uninformed government based on a two-period signalling game. Combining the signalling game and organizational growth approaches of previous contributions, this paper shows that, if a terrorist group follows a growth strategy, it has an incentive to appear weaker than it is by mimicking the behaviour of a smaller organization. Depending on its beliefs about the extent of the terrorist threat, it can be optimal for a government to spend more on second-period counter-terrorism measures if it is not attacked in the first period than if it were attacked.

Language: en