The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts

J. Atsu Amegashie and Marco Runkel ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We consider a differential game of a conflict between two factions who both have a desire to exact revenge. We show that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, the desire for revenge need not lead to escalation of conflicts. Surprisingly, in the open-loop equilibrium, the weaker faction exerts a higher effort when the stronger faction’s military capability increases. This result is not possible in the absence of a desire for revenge. The closed-loop equilibrium is characterized by a self-deterrence effect: Anticipating the future retaliation of the opponent, a faction has an incentive to exert lower effort today. This strengthens the tendency to a stable steady state and paradoxically may decrease the factions’ effort below the levels exerted in the case without revenge. We discuss some applications of our results and also offer an explanation of a puzzling empirical result obtained by Jaeger and Paserman (2007) in their study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We also discuss the implications of revenge-dependent preferences for welfare economics and their strategic value as commitment devices.

Keywords: conflict; commitment; differential game; revenge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B21 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-03-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/7687/1/MPRA_paper_7687.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Paradox of Revenge in Conflicts (2012)
Working Paper: The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts (2008)
Working Paper: The Paradoxes of Revenge in Conflicts (2008)
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:pra:mprapa:7687

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().