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Some argue that poverty could be at the root of terror even if terrorists are not themselves poor. Anger about poverty in the countries they are from could cause richer citizens of poor countries to join terrorist organisations. This idea can be tested by looking across countries to see if there is a link between a country’s GDP per head and its propensity to produce terrorists. Mr Krueger did precisely this by looking at data on 956 terrorist events between 1997 and 2003. He found that the poorest countries, those with low literacy, or those whose economies were relatively stagnant did not produce more terrorists. When the analysis was restricted to suicide-attacks, there was a statistically significant pattern—but in the opposite direction. Citizens of the poorest countries were the least likely to commit a suicide-attack. The nationalities of all foreign insurgents captured in Iraq between April and October 2005 also produced no evidence that poorer countries produced more insurgents. If anything, there was weak evidence the other way.
What might explain why so many relatively well-off people from relatively well-off countries end up as terrorists? It may be that a certain level of education makes it more likely that people will become politicised. But the kind of people that terrorist organisations demand also matters. Unlike ordinary street crime, which does tend to attract the down-and-out, terrorism is a complex activity. So terrorist organisations prefer to recruit skilled, educated people to carry out their missions. Using a database of Palestinian suicide-bombers between the years 2000 and 2005, Mr Berrebi and Harvard University’s Efraim Benmelech find that more educated suicide-bombers are assigned to attack more important targets. Such terrorists also kill more people and are less likely to fail or be caught during their attacks.

A. 어휘
propensity 경향, 성질. precisely 정밀하게, 정확히.
literacy 문자해득. relatively 상대적으로. stagnant 停滯(정체)되어있는.
analysis 분석. restricted 제한되다. suicide-attacks 자살공격.
statistically significant pattern 통계적으로 의미 있는 유형.
opposite direction 반대방향. commit 犯(범)하다, 저지르다.
nationalities 國籍(국적). insurgents 폭도, 반정부 운동가.
capture 체포하다. well-off 부유한. the down-and-out 零落(영락)한 사람들.
prefer 選好(선호)하다. assign 지명하다, 배당하다, 할당하다.