Contest functions (alternatively, contest success functions) determine probabilities of winning and losing as a function of contestants’ eort. They are used widely in many areas of economics that employ contest games, from tournaments and rent-seeking to conflict and sports. We first examine...

I argue that the eurozoneís current problems are primarily structural: A weak central bank; the absence of fiscal coordination; fragmented bank supervision with individual countries having the ultimate responsibility for supporting banks but without the ability to print their own currency. At...

We explore theoretical foundations and issues in the empirical estimation of conflict technologies. Such technologies are probabilistic choice functions that depend on the military capacities of adversaries, where the military capacities themselves depend on economic inputs via ordinary...

Proprietary rule, whereby the state is owned by a ruler who maximizes tax revenues minus the costs of governing, is a useful ideal type that describes many of the states that have ever existed. The study of proprietary rule and its public finance, however, is comparatively scarce. I argue that...

In this paper, we explore two factors that can limit arming and, more generally, the costs of enforcement within and across states: governance or the formal organizations and institutions that help define and enforce property rights, and norms, or the informal arrangements in settling potential...

We construct a model of conflict and trade to study the consequences of interstate disputes over contested resources (land, oil, water or other resources) for arming, welfare and trade flows. Different trade regimes imply different costs of such disputes in terms of arming. Depending on world...

In Greece and other countries of the eurozone there are a number of misconceptions about the debt crisis. I argue against seven of such misconceptions (or, myths) about the effects of default, the primary cause of the crisis, the likely effects of an exit from the eurozone, the bargaining power...

In this chapter, we examine how some of the main results in international trade theory fare when we abandon the traditional assumption of third-party enforcement of property rights. Without such enforcement, countries arm and exercise power to secure resources used in production or to secure the...

How do the outcomes of international wars affect domestic social change? In turn, how do changing patterns of social identification and domestic conflict affect a nation's military capability? Models that link structural variables, power politics, and the individuals that constitute states are...

Why do legal disputes ever go to trial? Prior research emphasizes the role of mistakes, irrationalities, or asymmetric information because rational litigants with complete or symmetric information should choose pre-trial settlements over the costs and risks of trial. Using a dynamic...