Terrorism as Socio-Economic and Cultural Barriers to Indonesian Firms’ Financial Performance

Abstract

Terrorism causes ethical and cultural issues and adversely impacts a nation's socio-economic development. Considering the escalating focus on the economic contribution toward Indonesia’s stability, growth, and industrial transformation, the current study aims to examine the impact of terrorism on the financial performance of firms listed on the Indonesian stock exchange. The statistics regarding terrorist attacks, fatalities, and injuries during such attacks from 2011 to 2020 in Indonesia were gathered from the Global Terrorism Database, and the data regarding firms’ internal characteristics and the external environment was gathered from the credit agency in Indonesia, PT Pemeringkat Efek Indonesia, mostly known as PEFINDO. At the same time, the central Bank Indonesia was approached for the financial statements of the firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. Applying the Cobb–Douglas production function and Pooled Ordinary Least Squares, the results revealed a significant and negative influence of terrorism on firms’ performance. The influence of firms’ internal characteristics and external environment were considered control variables. As a valuable addition to the existing literature, the current study provides unique evidence of the effects of previous years’ terrorism and within-country variations of terrorism on firm financial performance.