Please cite this article in press as: Prieto-Rodríguez, J., et al. Quantifying fear: The social impact of terrorism. Journal of Policy Modeling (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jpolmod.2008.07.004 ARTICLE IN PRESS +Model JPO-5775; No. of Pages 15 Journal of Policy Modeling xxx (2009) xxx–xxx Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Quantifying fear: The social impact of terrorism  Juan Prieto-Rodríguez a,1 , Juan Gabriel Rodríguez b,∗ , Rafael Salas c,2 , Javier Suarez-Pandiello a,1 a Universidad de Oviedo, Avda. del Cristo s/n, 33071 Oviedo, Spain b Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Campus de Vicálvaro, 28032 Madrid, Spain c Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Campus de Somosaguas, 28223 Madrid, Spain Received 8 July 2008; received in revised form 22 July 2008; accepted 24 July 2008 Abstract This paper proposes a methodology to measure social impact of terrorism. We define a multidimensional terrorism index based not only on deaths but also on other variables such as injuries, bombs and kidnappings. The weight of each terrorist activity is given by its social impact, which is estimated through its relevance in the media. For this task we build up a new data set from the four most important newspapers in Spain, namely, El País, El Mundo, ABC, and La Vanguardia. Finally, we evaluate the social impact of ETA terrorism in Spain from 1993 through 2004. © 2009 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. JEL classification: C20; D00; Z13 Keywords: Terrorism; Multidimensional index; Social impact weight The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological. (Definition of terrorism by the U.S. Department of Defense)  We are grateful for assistance with the database from Jorge Re˜ nones. We also acknowledge useful comments and suggestions by the participants in the Lisbon Conference on Defence and Security 2008. This research has benefited from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology Projects SEJ2007-64700/ECON and SEJ2006-15172/ECON. The usual disclaimer applies. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 91 4887948. E-mail addresses: jprietor@uniovi.es (J. Prieto-Rodríguez), juangabriel.rodriguez@urjc.es (J.G. Rodríguez), r.salas@ccee.ucm.es (R. Salas), jspandi@uniovi.es (J. Suarez-Pandiello). 1 Tel.: +34 985 103768. 2 Tel.: +34 91 3942512. 0161-8938/$ – see front matter © 2009 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jpolmod.2008.07.004