Scarcity, Abundance, and Appropriative Conflict

Herschel I. Grossman

Working Papers from Brown University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Both common sense and historical examples suggest that resource scarcity causes appro- priative con ict as people struggle with each other to avoid hunger and starvation. But, economic intuition, also supported by historical examples, suggests that resource abundance, by giving people more to ght over, causes appropriative con ict. This paper resolves this apparent paradox by showing that these two hypotheses are not inconsistent. By explicitly incorporating into our theory both the intensity of the urge to survive and the allocation of time and effort to leisure activities, we are able to formalize both of these hypotheses within the same model.

Keywords: RESOURCE ALLOCATION; SOCIAL WELFARE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 I30 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bro:econwp:98-12

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