Fairness preferences as a cause of inefficient war

M. Christian Lehmann

Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 2022, vol. 6, issue 1, 33-36

Abstract: Social psychologists, behavioral economists and biologists have long documented how fairness concerns motivate behavior, but workhorse bargaining models of war ignore this. I present a simple model in which a nation is challenged by an enemy (e.g., a terrorist attack). The nation's political leader must decide between a peaceful solution (i.e., buying the enemy off) or war (i.e., hunt the enemy down). The leader, who has re-election incentives, knows that a fraction of voters has fairness preferences - they strongly feel that the enemy should be hunted down (i.e., "punished") rather than bought off (i.e., "rewarded"). The model illustrates that fairness preferences can trigger war even if a peaceful solution is ten times cheaper.

Keywords: bargaining; violence; conflict; justice; vengeance; retaliation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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