A Trade Institution as a Peaceful Institution?

Raul Caruso ()

Others from EconWPA

Abstract: Recent studies emphasize the occurrence of conflict as a rational economic activity as well as production and exchange. Agents are assumed to divide their efforts into fighting and productive activities, or as commonly denoted in ^Qguns^R and ^Qbutter^R. This paper does try to go beyond this ^Qmanichean^R idea assuming the Boulding^Rs concept of ^Qintegrative system^R. In particular, the paper investigates whether a trade institution committed to free and fair trade could foster ^Qpeaceful^R benefits for member countries. The analysis, produced in a very simplified world, counts as a founding pillar the Contest Success Function. The results of the model suggest that in an institutionalized scenario agents gain more both in terms of economic utility and in terms of peace than in ^Qcontinuing conflict^R and ^Qobstructed trade^R scenarios.

Keywords: Contest Success Function; Conflict; international Trade Institution. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P Q Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr
Date: 2004-06-12, Revised 2005-05-02
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 38
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/othr/papers/0406/0406003.pdf (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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0406003

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Others from EconWPA
Series data maintained by EconWPA ().