A New Economic Analysis of the American Revolution

Paul Hallwood and Ambyre Ponivas
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Ambyre Ponivas: University of Connecticut

No 2009-08, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: We offer an analysis of the American Revolution in which actors are modeled as choosing the sovereign organization that maximizes their net expected benefits. Benefits of secession derive from satisfaction of greed and settlement of grievance. Costs derive from the cost of civil war and lost benefit of Empire membership. When expected net benefits are positive for both secessionists and the Empire civil war ensues, otherwise it is settled or never begins in the first place. The novelty of our discussion is to show how diverse economic and non-economic factors (such as pamphleteering by Thomas Paine and the morale of the Revolutionary forces) can be integrated into a single economic model.

Keywords: American Revolution; autonomous regions; causes of war; civil war; collapse of empire; empire; international borders; secession; self determination; theory of history; transaction costs; war of secession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F5 K33 N40 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2009-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uct:uconnp:2009-08

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