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Contribution Details

Type Working Paper
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title A typology of military conflict based on the Hirshleifer contest
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Christian Ewerhart
Language
  • English
Institution University of Zurich
Series Name Working paper series / Department of Economics
Number 400
ISSN 1664-7041
Number of Pages 58
Date 2021
Abstract Text In a canonical model of military conflict, victory and defeat depend stochastically on the difference of resources deployed by the conflict parties. The present paper offers a comprehensive analysis of that model. The unique Nash equilibrium reflects either (i) peace, (ii) submission, (iii) insurgency, or (iv) war. Intuitive predictions regarding possible transitions between these types of equilibria are obtained. The analysis identifies advances in weaponry as an important driver of conflict and, less often so, of its resolution. The formal derivation exploits the variation-diminishing property of higher-order Pólya frequency functions.
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Keywords Military conflict, difference-form contest, insurgency, Pólya frequency functions