Conflict without Misperceptions or Incomplete Information

Michelle Garfinkel and Stergios Skaperdas

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2000, vol. 44, issue 6, 793-807

Abstract: Conflict and war are typically viewed as the outcome of misperceptions, incomplete information, or even irrationality. The authors show that it can be otherwise. Despite the short-run incentives to settle disputes peacefully, there can be long-term, compounding rewards to going to war when doing better relative to one's opponent today implies doing better tomorrow. Peaceful settlement involves not only sharing the pie available today but also foregoing the possibility, brought about by war, of gaining a permanent advantage over one's opponent into the future. The authors show how war emerges as an equilibrium outcome in a model that takes these considerations into account. War is more likely to occur, the more important is the future.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (138)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002700044006005 (text/html)

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:sae:jocore:v:44:y:2000:i:6:p:793-807

DOI: 10.1177/0022002700044006005

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().