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This study aims to examine the effect on stock returns of 28 terrorist and military events occurring between 1963 and 2012. The authors divide the sample and examine these attacks on the basis of industry, country targeted, location, terrorism versus militarism and predicted overall impact.

The authors measure the effects of the events in our sample along several dimensions: in the aggregate; comparatively across industries; by each event’s predicted level of impact; by the type of event (terrorist versus military); by the location of the attack (USA or outside the USA); and by whether the USA was, directly or by proxy, the primary target of the attack.

Stock returns are significantly lower for those industries predicted to be most hurt than for other industries. Events that the authors predict to be of high impact to the market are followed by significantly lower returns than events we predict to be of low impact. Stocks perform significantly worse on the days of terrorist events than on the days of military events, but the opposite is true for the day after. Significantly lower returns follow events that occur inside the USA or where the USA was the primary target.

This study focuses on 28 high-profile events over a 50-year period and makes several new contributions to the literature. The authors find compelling cross-sectional differences between stock returns at the industry level as well as predictable differences in mean returns between events. The authors distinguish between terrorist and military attacks and also separate the sample geographically.

The authors believe that this study can help researchers and investors more deeply understand the overall market and industry effects of significant terrorist and military events.

By offering a thorough examination of the differences between high-profile attacks in the context of stock returns both on the day of and the day immediately following those attacks, the authors hope that people will be able to better grasp the likelihood and magnitude of the initial damage done by these attacks as well as the subsequent recovery.

Most studies that examine the effects of terrorism on the stock market focus on one or two specific events or stock market locations. They also tend to concentrate on very specific characteristics of the attack(s) that they examine, such as the size of the market or the aggregate effect to that market. The authors study 28 high-profile events over a 50-year period and examine them by industry, country targeted, location, terrorism versus militarism and predicted overall impact. This study presents many new results using these classifications.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 25.7% of individuals residing in the United States were under the age of 18 in the year 2003 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004a). Within that group 17.6%, about 12 million children, were living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004b). Of the children classified as living in poverty, most lived in metropolitan areas. As defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), metropolitan areas are geographic entities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, or an urbanized area made up of a central place and adjacent territories where the general population density is at least 1000 people per square mile of land (U.S. Census Bureau 2004c). The largest city in a metropolitan area is called a “central city” or an urban center. These densely populated urban cities are home to most children living in poverty in metropolitan areas.

We address here how the U.S. neoliberal policy regime developed and how its reconstructed vision of modernization, which culminated, under the rubric of globalization, was neutralized by 9/11 and neoconservative geopolitics. We analyze the phases in the rise of neoliberalism, and provide a detailed map of its vision of global modernization at its high tide under Clinton. We also address how the Bush Doctrine's unilateral, preemptive polices and the consequent War on Terror and Iraq War eroded U.S. legitimacy as the globalization system's hegmon and shifted the discourse from globalization to empire. Cold War modernization theorists, neoliberal globalization advocates, and Bush doctrine neoconservatives all drew on an American exceptionalist tradition that portrays the U.S. as modernity's “lead society,” attaches universal significance to its values, policies, and institutions, and urges their worldwide diffusion. All three traditions ignore or diminish the importance of substantive equality and social justice. We suggest that consequent U.S. policy problems might be averted by recovery of a suppressed side of the American tradition that stresses social justice and holds that democracy must start at home and be spread by example rather than by exhortation or force. Overall, we explore the contradictory U.S. role in an emergent post-Cold War world.

The Framers of the Constitution granted Congress the ability to punish members for misconduct to protect the institution's integrity and dignity. However, with the low approval ratings of Congress and the widespread belief that those in government are corrupt, the institution has not done an excellent job at protecting its integrity. This chapter examines all allegations investigated by the House and Senate Ethics Committees to determine if Congress has systematically punished misconduct among members. Using data on 396 misconduct investigations in Congress, this research examines the institution's likelihood of punishing a member before and after implementing permanent ethics committees in the 90th Congress. The study reveals that Congress was more likely to systematically punish members for ethical misconduct before permanently installing ethics committees. However, in the contemporary period, the only type of misconduct a member is likely to be punished for is sexual harassment. Yet, the likelihood of being punished for sexual harassment falls when a member resigns or strategically retires.