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Static Models of Conflict

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An Economic Analysis of Conflicts

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Abstract

Two main approaches are used in civil war literature to describe the reasons behind the occurrence of, and participation in, a conflict: The first is based on the rational theory of actions that evaluates the trade-off between opportunities and costs, described in the form of expected versus foregone benefits. The other approach argues that a conflict is caused by grievances against vested interests that hold society in a backward state and prevent opportunities for the many. This chapter describes the static opportunity-cost model and employs it to explain some stylized facts observed in civil wars.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Other combinations of weighting coefficients do not significantly affect the results, and the findings remain qualitatively the same.

  2. 2.

    Often the spreading of diseases is strongly correlated with low per capita income and impoverishment. For the case of malaria, see the study of Datta and Reimer (2013). Similarly, Spence et al. (1993) establish that tuberculosis is strongly associated with poverty.

  3. 3.

    The explanation might be that hospitals were concentrated in larger cities where discontent was stronger or perhaps less suppressed.

  4. 4.

    The decisions was adopted by the 7th Party Congress, in October 1945; see KKE documents (1964, p. 534).

  5. 5.

    In his analysis of proletarianization, Karl Marx (1954) first asserts that “the amount of capital which is bound to be in the hands of each capitalist must keep increasing”, and then concludes that the “[a]ccumulation of capital is, therefore, increase of the proletariat”; Capital (Ch. XIV and XXV, p. 340 and 576 respectively).

  6. 6.

    Further details can be found in Christodoulakis (2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of International & European Economics Studies, Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB), Athens, Greece

    Nicos Christodoulakis

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  1. Nicos Christodoulakis
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Christodoulakis, N. (2016). Static Models of Conflict. In: An Economic Analysis of Conflicts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32261-2_3

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