Author's Personal Copy Religion, Terrorism and Public Goods: Testing the Club Model ☆ Journal of Public Economics Author's Personal Copy

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Can rational models, once theological explanations are discredited, explain why certain radical religious rebels are so successful in perpetrating suicide attacks? The fundamental barrier to success turns out not to be recruiting suicide attackers; there is a rational basis for volunteering. Rather, the barrier is the danger of other operatives defecting. A club model, portraying voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local public goods, explains how they weed out potential defectors by requiring sacrifices as signals of commitment. They are thereby able to succeed in risky terrorist attacks. The model has testable implications for tactic choice and damage achieved by clubs and other rebel organizations. Data spanning a half-century on both terrorists and civil war insurgents, much from Middle East sources and Israel/Palestine, reveal that: a) missions organized by radical religious clubs that provide benign local public goods are both more lethal and are more likely to be suicide attacks than missions organized by other terrorist groups with similar aims and theologies; and b) suicide attacks are chosen when targets are " hard, " i.e., difficult to destroy. Our results suggest benign tactics to counter radical religious terrorism and insurgency. JEL classification: H41 H56 Z12 D2 J0 O17 Keywords: Terrorism Economics of religion Club goods Public goods Insurgency Sects Middle East Suicide attacks Development economics " We must examine the costs and benefits of continued armed operations. " as well as comments of participants in numerous conferences and seminars. Eva Meyersson Milgrom organized the Stanford suicide terrorism project. Her foresight spawned our collaboration. We thank Barak Bouks, Liang Choon Wang and Lindsay Heger for research assistance. Mistakes are our own.