Conflict, Settlement, and the Shadow of the Future

Michael McBride () and Stergios Skaperdas
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Michael McBride: Department of Economics, University of California-Irvine

No 80922, Working Papers from University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics

Abstract: In many instances of potential violent or non-violent conflict, the future strategic positions of adversaries are very different when there is open conflict than when there is settlement. Then, we show that as the future becomes more important, open conflict becomes more likely than settlement. We discuss the applicability of this finding in war, litigation, and other settings, and test it it in a laboratory experiment. We find that subjects are more likely to engage in risky conflict as the future becomes more important.

Keywords: Conflict; Litigation; Property rights; Folk theorem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D01 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-gth
Date: 2009-05
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:irv:wpaper:080922

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