Fighting for Resources: A Unified Growth Model of the Great Divergence

Tanguy Le Fur and Etienne Wasmer

No 19955, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper interprets the Great Divergence as the cumulative influence of small asymmetries in technology or various initial conditions, amplified through conflict over resources. It introduces a tractable framework that integrates demography, technological progress, and conflict into a unified growth model. The amplification effect of resource appropriation is characterized by conflict multipliers in both the short- and long-run. Conflict is a source of substantial divergence, as appropriation of resources allows some polities (cities, countries) to develop faster at the expense of others. Reconvergence is, however, possible through population growth, due to strategic complementarities in fertility decisions and staggered demographic transitions. Rich and non-linear dynamics display key features of comparative economic development between the West and the Global South, but also shed light on a variety of historical case studies that share such dynamics of divergence and reconvergence as well as more dramatic episodes of population extinction in a dominated country. Our framework can easily be extended to study the role of resource exhaustion or the fundamental trade-off between trade and conflict.

Keywords: Conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F54 N10 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19955 (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:cpr:ceprdp:19955

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19955

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().