Research Paper on:
Post 911 Economy

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
software companies, Donald Trump and Scottish pubs have in common? " (p.PG). While the answer is that perhaps they are successful individuals or enterprises, Bates claims that what they have  in common now, after September 11th, is that each entity is blaming their poor financial performance on terrorist attacks (2001). Indeed, there are many examples of this. How does  one explain why just days after the incident, the airlines needed a government bailout package? Sure, the incident affected airlines directly, but it does not seem likely that this created  such destruction in such a short time. In fact, the stock market was closed for less than a week, and when it reopened, an anticipated freefall ensued. But the market  recovered and it recovered nicely. Although unemployment is up, unemployment had been up prior to the terrorist activity. Bates (2001) points out that while many companies blamed the attacks for  poor performance in their third quarters, the quarter was 75% (2001, p.PG) over when the planes began to go down. Surely, they cannot blame the incident for their poor  performance, when their companies were doing poorly long before Osama Bin Laden became a household name. At the same time, no one can deny that terrorism has had an impact  on the economy and the performance of companies. Might there be some credibility to the claim? It is uncertain as to how  much of an impact September 11th had. Russell Roberts, an economist, says: "Theres no way of knowing, except in the most obvious cases. But its a handy thing to invoke  as a cause, even when it may have nothing to do with the results " (qtd. in Bates, 2001, p.PG). Perhaps microeconomic theory may help to explain it better.