Why suicide-terrorists get educated, and what to do about it

This paper tries to reconcile the observed fact that suicide-terrorists have a relatively high education level with rationality. It brings out the conditions under which potential students choose to acquire some education in a rational-choice model where this yields a non-zero probability of blowing up the resulting human capital in a terrorist attack. The comparative-statics of the rational expectations equilibrium of this model demonstrate how economic development, on the one hand, and repression, on the other hand, might reduce terrorism under some parameter restrictions. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012