Terror, fear and behaviour in the Jerusalem housing market

This paper tests the hypothesis that fear is a central factor in understanding human behaviour in the face of terror. This claim is addressed in the context of behaviour in the Jerusalem housing market over the terror-stricken years in the city, 1999-2004. Using a unique data source and the tools of spatial data analysis, the paper provides support for this hypothesis in three respects. First, patterns of terror in the city are shown to be increasingly deconcentrated over the period studied. Secondly, the types of terror having the sharpest effect on residential property prices are those most associated with randomness. Thirdly, the effect of terror is less on purchasing prices than on rental prices. The former represent revealed long-term behaviour less affected by fear and the latter, short-term behaviour more likely to be influenced by such disutility. The paper concludes with some of the policy implications arising from these findings.