Journal Article

Societal responses to continued endemic terror: evidence from driving behaviour in Israel

Abstract

In this paper, using data on traffic volume and fatal accident rates in Israel between 2001 and 2004 - a period spanning much of the Second Intifada - we examine the population level responses to endemic terror to uncover whether societies become habituated so that the response weakens following repeated attacks or whether they become increasingly sensitized so that later attacks have a greater impact. Our analysis, using distributed-lag time series models, supports earlier findings while highlighting the persistence of the response to terror attacks even several years into the violence. There are however signs that the reaction to terror has accelerated. This shift, which is not naturally seen as evidence for either habituation or sensitization, is suggestive of social learning of norms over time.