Publication: Who Supports Violent Extremism in Developing Countries?: Analysis of Attitudes Based on Value Surveys
Loading...
Files in English
763 downloads
Date
2016-06
ISSN
Published
2016-06
Author(s)
Kiendrebeogo, Youssouf
Editor(s)
Abstract
What are the common characteristics among radicalized individuals, willing to justify attacks targeting civilians? Drawing on information on attitudes toward extreme violence and other characteristics of 30,787 individuals from 27 developing countries around the world, and employing a variety of econometric techniques, this paper identifies the partial correlates of extremism. The results suggest that the typical extremist who supports attacks against civilians is more likely to be young, unemployed and struggling to make ends meet, relatively uneducated, and not as religious as others, but more willing to sacrifice own life for his or her beliefs. Gender and marital status are not found to explain significantly the individual-level variation in attitudes toward extremism. Although these results may vary in magnitude and significance across countries and geographic regions, they are robust to various sensitivity analyses.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Kiendrebeogo, Youssouf; Ianchovichina, Elena. 2016. Who Supports Violent Extremism in Developing Countries?: Analysis of Attitudes Based on Value Surveys. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7691. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24529 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication Geopolitical Fragmentation and Friendshoring(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-26)This paper examines the relationship between geopolitical fragmentation and friendshoring of foreign investments over time, countries, and sectors. The analysis uses comprehensive data on foreign direct investments covering greenfield projects, mergers and acquisitions, and stocks of affiliates, as well as data on four alternative measures of geopolitical distance between countries. The gravity estimations suggest that, first, geopolitical differences have a negative effect on foreign investments and the magnitude has heightened in the post-pandemic period compared to a decade ago. Second, it is primarily the companies from advanced Western economies whose foreign investment decisions are increasingly shaped by friendshoring forces. Finally, the paper shows that friendshoring is not only confined to strategic industries, implying that allocations of foreign direct investments may not solely reflect national security or resilience considerations.Publication Soaring Food Prices Threaten Recent Economic Gains in the EU(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-02)The surge in food prices following the 2021 economic rebound has become a significant concern for households, particularly low-income ones, in Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, and Romania. Food price inflation, which surpasses general inflation rates, risks worsening poverty and food insecurity in these countries. This paper explores the distributional impacts of rising food prices and the effectiveness of government response measures. Low-income households, who allocate a larger share of their income to food, are disproportionately affected and are struggling to cope with unexpected expenses, leading to increased difficulties in accessing proper nutrition. Simulations indicate that rising food prices contribute to higher poverty rates and greater income inequality, especially among vulnerable populations. They also suggest that the main poverty-targeted social assistance schemes offer critical support for the extreme poor, but expanding both coverage and benefits is vital to shield all at-risk individuals. Targeted policies that balance immediate relief with long-term resilience-building are essential to addressing the challenges posed by escalating food prices.Publication Disentangling the Key Economic Channels through Which Infrastructure Affects Jobs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)This paper takes stock of the literature on infrastructure and jobs published since the early 2000s, using a conceptual framework to identify the key channels through which different types of infrastructure impact jobs. Where relevant, it highlights the different approaches and findings in the cases of energy, digital, and transport infrastructure. Overall, the literature review provides strong evidence of infrastructure’s positive impact on employment, particularly for women. In the case of electricity, this impact arises from freeing time that would otherwise be spent on household tasks. Similarly, digital infrastructure, particularly mobile phone coverage, has demonstrated positive labor market effects, often driven by private sector investments rather than large public expenditures, which are typically required for other large-scale infrastructure projects. The evidence on structural transformation is also positive, with some notable exceptions, such as studies that find no significant impact on structural transformation in rural India in the cases of electricity and roads. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities, due to the absence of agglomeration economies and complementary inputs such as human capital. Accordingly, reducing transport costs alone may not be sufficient to drive economic transformation in rural areas. The spatial dimension of transformation is particularly relevant for transport, both internationally—by enhancing trade integration—and within countries, where economic development tends to drive firms and jobs toward urban centers, benefitting from economies scale and network effects. Turning to organizational transformation, evidence on skill bias in developing countries is more mixed than in developed countries and may vary considerably by context. Further research, especially on the possible reasons explaining the differences between developed and developing economies, is needed.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Brazil within Brazil : Testing the Poverty Map Methodology in Minas Gerais(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02)The small-area estimation technique developed for producing poverty maps has been applied in a large number of developing countries. Opportunities to formally test the validity of this approach remain rare due to lack of appropriately detailed data. This paper compares a set of predicted welfare estimates based on this methodology against their true values, in a setting where these true values are known. A recent study draws on Monte Carlo evidence to warn that the small-area estimation methodology could significantly over-state the precision of local-level estimates of poverty, if underlying assumptions of spatial homogeneity do not hold. Despite these concerns, the findings in this paper for the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, indicate that the small-area estimation approach is able to produce estimates of welfare that line up quite closely to their true values. Although the setting considered here would seem, a priori, unlikely to meet the homogeneity conditions that have been argued to be essential for the method, confidence intervals for the poverty estimates also appear to be appropriate. However, this latter conclusion holds only after carefully controlling for community-level factors that are correlated with household level welfare.Publication Replicating Replication : Due Diligence in Roodman and Morduch’s Replication of Pitt and Khandker (1998)(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11)"The Impact of Microcredit on the Poor in Bangladesh: Revisiting the Evidence," by David Roodman and Jonathan Morduch (2011) is the most recent of a sequence of papers and postings that seeks to refute the findings of the Pitt and Khandker (1998) article "The Impact of Group-Based Credit on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?" that microcredit for women had significant, favorable effects on poverty reduction. In this paper the authors show that these latest Roodman and Morduch claims are based on seriously flawed econometric methods and theory and a lack of due diligence in formulating models and interpreting output from packaged software. On the basis of Roodman and Morduch's preferred two-stage least squares regression, an alternative calculation of the standard errors would lead one to conclude that the problem with Pitt and Khandker is that they underestimate the positive and statistically significant effect of women's credit on household consumption. As in their previous efforts, the methods of Roodman and Morduch are shown to bias the findings in the direction of rejecting the results of Pitt and Khandker. We also further examine two aspects of our instrumental variable approach that have been attacked by Roodman and Morduch. The first is the validity of the exclusion restrictions underlying the use of interactions between program choice and the set of exogenous variables (including the village fixed effects) as instruments. The second is the application of the "one-half acre" program eligibility rule. The authors show that identification does not require both of these, and present new results dropping each assumption in turn. The results originally reported in the Pitt and Khandker paper hold up extremely well in this new analysis.Publication Estimation of Normal Mixtures in a Nested Error Model with an Application to Small Area Estimation of Poverty and Inequality(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-07)This paper proposes a method for estimating distribution functions that are associated with the nested errors in linear mixed models. The estimator incorporates Empirical Bayes prediction while making minimal assumptions about the shape of the error distributions. The application presented in this paper is the small area estimation of poverty and inequality, although this denotes by no means the only application. Monte-Carlo simulations show that estimates of poverty and inequality can be severely biased when the non-normality of the errors is ignored. The bias can be as high as 2 to 3 percent on a poverty rate of 20 to 30 percent. Most of this bias is resolved when using the proposed estimator. The approach is applicable to both survey-to-census and survey-to-survey prediction.Publication Estimating the Gravity Model When Zero Trade Flows are Frequent and Economically Determined(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06)This paper evaluates the performance of alternative estimators of the gravity equation when zero trade flows result from economically-based data-generating processes with heteroscedastic residuals and potentially-omitted variables. In a standard Monte Carlo analysis, the paper finds that this combination can create seriously biased estimates in gravity models with frequencies of zero frequently observed in real-world data, and that Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood models can be important in solving this problem. Standard threshold–Tobit estimators perform well in a Tobit-based data-generating process only if the analysis deals with the heteroscedasticity problem. When the data are generated by a Heckman sample selection model, the Zero-Inflated Poisson model appears to have the lowest bias. When the data are generated by a Helpman, Melitz, and Rubinstein-type model with heterogeneous firms, a Zero-Inflated Poisson estimator including firm numbers appears to provide the best results. Testing on real-world data for total trade throws up additional puzzles with truncated Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood and Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood estimators being very similar, and Zero-Inflated Poisson and truncated Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood identical. Repeating the Monte Carlo analysis taking into account the high frequency of very small predicted trade flows in real-world data reconciles these findings and leads to specific recommendations for estimators.Publication Re-Re-Reply to "The Impact of Microcredit on the Poor in Bangladesh : Revisiting the Evidence"(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-03)"The Impact of Microcredit on the Poor in Bangladesh: Revisiting the Evidence," by David Roodman and Jonathan Morduch (2014) (henceforth RM) is the most recent of a sequence of papers and web postings that seeks to refute the findings of the Pitt and Khandker (1998; henceforth PK) article "The Impact of Group-Based Credit on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?" that microcredit for women had significant, favorable effects on household consumption and other outcomes. In this version of RM, the authors have backed off many of their prior claims and methods after earlier replies noted their faults (see Pitt (1999), Pitt (2011a), Pitt (2011b), and Pitt and Khandker (2012)). Nonetheless, important claims against PK remain in this new version of RM and are addressed below. Readers should refer to Pitt and Khandker (2012) for a discussion of other issues with RM, including a discussion of the bimodal likelihood.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication MIGA Annual Report 2021(Washington, DC: Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, 2021-10-01)In FY21, MIGA issued 5.2 billion US Dollars in new guarantees across 40 projects. These projects are expected to provide 784,000 people with new or improved electricity service, create over 14,000 jobs, generate over 362 million US Dollars in taxes for the host countries, and enable about 1.3 billion US Dollars in loans to businesses—critical as countries around the world work to keep their economies afloat. Of the 40 projects supported during FY21, 85 percent addressed at least one of the strategic priority areas, namely, IDA-eligible countries (lower-income), fragile and conflict affected situations (FCS), and climate finance. As of June 2021, MIGA has also issued 5.6 billion US Dollars of guarantees through our COVID-19 Response Program and anticipate an expansion to 10–12 billion US Dollars over the coming years, a testament to the countercyclical role that MIGA can play in mobilizing private investment in the face of the pandemic. A member of the World Bank Group, MIGA is committed to strong development impact and promoting projects that are economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable. MIGA helps investors mitigate the risks of restrictions on currency conversion and transfer, breach of contract by governments, expropriation, and war and civil disturbance, as well as offering credit enhancement on sovereign obligations.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.