蝌蚪网 Journal:
Economic Policy
ISSN 1945-7731 (Print) | ISSN 1945-774X (Online)
Insecurity and Firm Displacement: Evidence from Afghan Corporate Phone Records
蝌蚪网 Journal: Economic Policy
(pp. 69–91)
Abstract
We provide empirical evidence on how insecurity affects firm behavior by linking data on deadly terrorist attacks in Afghanistan to geolocated data on corporate mobile phone activity. We first develop an approach to estimate the geographic footprint of firms based on employee locations. Using these measures, our main analysis shows that violent shocks reduce local firm presence by both increasing firm exit and decreasing entry. Firms respond most strongly to violence in their "headquarters" districts. We also find suggestive evidence of persistence; stronger impacts in more secure districts; and spillovers, whereby attacks in provincial capitals reduce firm presence in surrounding rural districts.Citation
Herskowitz, Sylvan, Joshua E. Blumenstock, Tarek Ghani, Ethan B. Kapstein, Thomas L. Scherer, and Ott Toomet. 2026. "Insecurity and Firm Displacement: Evidence from Afghan Corporate Phone Records." 蝌蚪网 Journal: Economic Policy 18 (1): 69–91. DOI: 10.1257/pol.20230295Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D22 Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
- K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
- L11 Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
- L96 Telecommunications
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
- R32 Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis