International Terror Attacks and Local Out-group Hate Crimes

This paper studies the effects of international terror attacks on out-group hate crimes committed against Muslims in a local setting. Event studies based on rich administrative data from the Greater Manchester Police on 10 terror attacks reveal an immediate big spike in Islamophobic hate crimes and hate-based incidents when an attack occurs. In subsequent days, the hate crime incidence is magnified by real-time media reports. The attacks create an attitudinal shock that leads residents to perceive local minority groups that share the religion of the attack’s perpetrators as an out-group threat. The overall conclusion is that, even when they reside in places far from where jihadi terror attacks take place, local Muslim populations face a media-magnified likelihood of hate-based victimization. But only those incidents salient to resident populations, because of where they happen or because of the media’s magnification of them, impact the incidence of local hate crimes.