Peace Talk and Conflict Traps

Andrei Gyarmathy and Georgy Lukyanov
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Andrei Gyarmathy: CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Georgy Lukyanov: TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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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.

Keywords: Reputation; Signaling; Cheap talk; Security dilemma; Overlapping generations; Publicity; Audience costs; Conflict traps (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02-16
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05512175v1
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05512175

DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2511.11580

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