Conditional linkages between iron ore exports, foreign aid and terrorism

Abstract

We employ interactive quantile regressions to assess conditional linkages between foreign aid, iron ore exports and terrorism from a panel of 78 developing countries for the period of 1984–2008. The following main findings are established. First, it is primarily in the countries with the highest level of iron ore exports that terrorism affects exports. Second, bilateral aid has an impact on iron ore exports, while the evidence for such a relationship between multilateral aid and iron ore exports is limited. Third, there is limited support for the main hypothesis motivating this line of inquiry, notably that foreign aid can be used to mitigate a potentially negative effect of terrorism on resource exports. The results suggest that bilateral aid is more relevant at mitigating the negative effects of domestic and total terrorism on iron ore exports.