The Role and Evolution of Central Authorities

Paul Frijters () and Alexander F. Tieman

Public Economics from EconWPA

Abstract: In this paper we argue that authorities aid cooperation by means of direct coordination or the enforcement of pre-commitment devices such as contract laws.Credible threats of violence allow this role. In a local interaction model, an authority forms if mutually connected individuals with sufficient combined punishment potential have signalled their willingness to form such an authority, conditional upon the willigness of others to do so. Given a specific timing of decisions, we analyse the conditions under which authorities arise and under which they evolve into a stationary state with only one or several remaining authorities.

Keywords: Central Authorities; Cooperation; Evolution; Externalities; Local Interaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B25 C7 D62 D70 H1 H4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-07-29
Note: Type of Document - Tex/Scientific Workplace 3.0; prepared on Compaq PC; to print on PostScript; pages: 41 ; figures: included

Downloads: (external link)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/pe/papers/9907/9907005.pdf (application/pdf)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/pe/papers/9907/9907005.ps.gz (application/postscript)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Role and Evolution of Central Authorities (1999)
Working Paper: The Role and Evolution of Central Authorities (1999)
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:wuwppe:9907005

Access Statistics for this paper

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