Date Thesis Awarded
5-2008
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Science (BS)
Department
Economics
Advisor
Carlisle E. Moody, Jr.
Committee Members
Martin Schmidt
Philip deCamp
Abstract
The U.S. military, despite spending over $13 billion, appears powerless to stop the Iraqi insurgency's improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which cause most of the military's casualties and prevent victory by showing lawlessness and insecurity. However, this view ignores substitution effects we consider here. Using rational choice and expectations models, we find a backward-bending supply curve of attacks-- insurgents increase the resources for IED attacks when IEDs are made less effective, but must therefore reduce non-IED attacks 2% for every 1% decrease in IED effectiveness. The success of the counter-IED effort has thus been significantly underestimated.
Recommended Citation
Hanson, Matthew, "The Economics of Roadside Bombs" (2008). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 828.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/828
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.