TY - BOOK AU - Ahern,Kenneth R. ED - National Bureau of Economic Research. TI - The Importance of Psychology in Economic Activity: Evidence from Terrorist Attacks T2 - NBER working paper series PY - 2018/// CY - Cambridge, Mass. PB - National Bureau of Economic Research N1 - February 2018; Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers N2 - Terrorist attacks influence economic growth and individual psychology. However, identifying the direct effect of terrorism on economics and psychology is difficult because institutions also change in response to terrorist attacks. This paper controls for institutional responses to terrorist attacks by studying people who live beyond the institutions' borders, but are exposed to the attacks. I find that terrorism leads to declines in trust, subjective well-being, and the importance of creativity and freedom. However, at the macro-level, terrorism leads to increases in economic output and household income. These results are consistent with a growing literature that finds counterintuitive responses to trauma UR - https://www.nber.org/papers/w24331 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w24331 ER -