EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

From Rags to Rifles: The Economics of Deprivation, Conflict and Welfare State

Dominic Rohner

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: Historical evidence has taught us that it is often the poorest and most deprived people in unequal societies who are recruited to fight in civil wars. The present contribution constructs a theoretical model of the choice between appropriation and production, where conflict is represented as mutual stealing. Fully specified production functions allow for both symmetrical outcomes and for introducing inequalities in abilities and endowments. It is shown that people with lower marginal returns to productive activities due to lower ability, fewer endowments or discrimination are more likely to choose appropriative activities. Further, it is examined theoretically under what conditions welfare state policies such as redistribution of income and capital, as well as education, health and poverty-alleviation spending, can lead to less appropriative activities. Finally, the model.s implications are tested empirically using logit estimations.

Keywords: Conflict; deprivation; welfare state; poverty; appropriative activities. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D74 H50 I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2007-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe0771.pdf Working Paper Version (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:cam:camdae:0771

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jake Dyer (jd419@cam.ac.uk).

 
Page updated 2025-01-05
Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:0771