Peace Talk and Conflict Traps

Andrei Gyarmathy and Georgy Lukyanov

No 26-1712, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: Costly pre-play messages can deter unnecessary wars—but the same messages can also entrench stalemates once violence begins. We develop an overlapping-generations model of a security dilemma with persistent group types (normal vs. bad), one-sided private signaling by the current old to the current young, and noisy private memory of the last encounter. We characterize a stationary equilibrium in which, for an intermediate band of signal costs, normal old agents mix on sending a costly reassurance only after an alarming private history; the signal is kept marginally persuasive by endogenous receiver cutoffs and strategic mimicking by bad types. Signaling strictly reduces the hazard of conflict onset; conditional on onset, duration is unchanged in the private model but increases once a small probability of publicity (leaks) creates a public record of failed reconciliation. With publicity, play generically absorbs in a peace trap or a conflict trap. We discuss welfare and policy: when to prefer back-channels versus public pledges.

JEL-codes: C72 C73 D74 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-mic
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