Social Composition, Social Conflict, and Economic Development

Holger Strulik

Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Abstract: This article shows within a simple growth model how the make up of society affects economic performance when property rights are unenforceable. It investigates behavior of non-cooperative social groups that consume, produce, and appropriate resources either peacefully or through contest. For the case of symmetric groups it is shown that economic growth is generated only in peaceful societies. For the case of asymmetric groups rebel-equilibria are investigated in which a large majority behaves peacefully although challenged by an aggressive minority. In each case it is shown how the possibility of conflict and its intensity and the rate of economic growth depend on social fractionalizaton, general productivity of the economy, and the ease at which resources are appropriated. A final part extends the analysis towards behavior of non-benevolent social elites.

Keywords: Social Conflict; Social Fractionalization; Property Rights; Stagnation; Growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 D74 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2006-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-350.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Social composition, social conflict and economic development (2008)
Journal Article: Social composition, social conflict and economic development (2008)
Working Paper: Social Composition, Social Conflict, and Economic Development (2005)
Working Paper: Social Composition, Social Conflict, and Economic Development (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-350

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Heidrich, Christian ().