IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hai/wpaper/201806.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Conflict Over Transnational River Resources: An Applied Game Theoretic Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Beckmann

    (University of Hawai'i and the East West Center)

Abstract

This paper presents a game theoretic model to analyze transnational river resource conflicts such as the Indus River Basin conflict between Pakistan and India. The model demonstrates that to obtain a share of the river resources from the upstream country downstream, the downstream country must purchase costly armaments to threaten an invasion. Yet in this process, the upstream country has a significant first-mover advantage in extracting the river resource as it can internalize the threat of invasion and prevent it from happening in the non-invasion equilibrium "Peace with Threat of War". When the upstream country does not internalize the threat of invasion from the downstream country, the invasion equilibrium "War" occurs. This paper discusses the implications of each equilibria in the model within the context of the Indus River Basin conflict. This paper also discusses the possibility of Pareto-improving cooperative outcomes by imposing new institutional frameworks.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Beckmann, 2018. "Conflict Over Transnational River Resources: An Applied Game Theoretic Analysis," Working Papers 201806, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hai:wpaper:201806
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/workingpapers/WP_18-06.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski & Pierre Yared, 2012. "A Dynamic Theory of Resource Wars," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 283-331.
    2. Francesco Caselli & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2015. "The Geography of Interstate Resource Wars," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 267-315.
    3. Robinson, James A. & Torvik, Ragnar & Verdier, Thierry, 2006. "Political foundations of the resource curse," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 447-468, April.
    4. Vally Koubi & Gabriele Spilker & Tobias Böhmelt & Thomas Bernauer, 2014. "Do natural resources matter for interstate and intrastate armed conflict?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 51(2), pages 227-243, March.
    5. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    6. Francesco Caselli, 2012. "The Geography of Inter-State Resource Wars," 2012 Meeting Papers 1174, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Powell, Robert, 1993. "Guns, Butter, and Anarchy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 115-132, March.
    8. Egorov, Georgy & Guriev, Sergei & Sonin, Konstantin, 2009. "Why Resource-poor Dictators Allow Freer Media: A Theory and Evidence from Panel Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(4), pages 645-668, November.
    9. Philip R. Lane & Aaron Tornell, 1999. "The Voracity Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 22-46, March.
    10. Yared, Pierre, 2010. "A dynamic theory of war and peace," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1921-1950, September.
    11. Harris, Christopher J, 1985. "Existence and Characterization of Perfect Equilibrium in Games of Perfect Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(3), pages 613-628, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christian Ewerhart, 2021. "A typology of military conflict based on the Hirshleifer contest," ECON - Working Papers 400, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    2. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.
    3. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios & Syropoulos, Constantinos, 2015. "Trade and insecure resources," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 98-114.
    4. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2018. "Political economy of dynamic resource wars," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 765-782.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski & Pierre Yared, 2012. "A Dynamic Theory of Resource Wars," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 283-331.
    6. Serhat Doğan & Kerim Keskin & Çağrı Sağlam, 2023. "Analyzing strategic behavior in a dynamic model of bargaining and war," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 233-257, December.
    7. Chan, Kenneth S. & Laffargue, Jean-Pierre, 2016. "Plunder and tribute in a Malthusian world," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 138-150.
    8. Lei, Yu-Hsiang & Michaels, Guy, 2014. "Do giant oilfield discoveries fuel internal armed conflicts?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 139-157.
    9. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Rohner, Dominic, 2012. "War and natural resource exploitation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1714-1729.
    10. Pierre Pecher, 2018. "Ethnic divisions and the effect of appropriative competition intensity on economic performance," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 165-193, May.
    11. Francesco Caselli & Andrea Tesei, 2016. "Resource Windfalls, Political Regimes, and Political Stability," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(3), pages 573-590, July.
    12. Eoin McGuirk, 2013. "The illusory leader: natural resources, taxation and accountability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 285-313, March.
    13. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2016. "War and Relatedness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(5), pages 925-939, December.
    14. Dziubiński, Marcin & Goyal, Sanjeev & Minarsch, David E.N., 2021. "The strategy of conquest," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    15. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2017. "Rapacious Oil Exploration in face of Regime Switches: Breakthrough Renewable Energy and Dynamic Resource Wars," Development Working Papers 415, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    16. Elena Esposito & Scott F. Abramson, 2021. "The European coal curse," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 77-112, March.
    17. Quentin Gallea & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2022. "Power in the Pipeline," Papers 2210.03572, arXiv.org.
    18. Ajide, Kazeem B. & Adenuga, Juliet I. & Raheem, Ibrahim D., 2020. "Natural resource rents, political regimes and terrorism in Africa," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 50-66.
    19. Vasilyeva, Olga & Libman, Alexander, 2020. "Varieties of authoritarianism matter: Elite fragmentation, natural resources and economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    20. Giacomo Battiston & Matteo Bizzarri & Riccardo Franceschin, 2021. "Third-Party Interest, Resource Value, and the Likelihood of Conflict," CSEF Working Papers 631, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 20 Jun 2022.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    India; Indus River Basin; International Conflict; Pakistan; Third-Party Arbitration; Transnational River;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F51 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions
    • F55 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Institutional Arrangements

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hai:wpaper:201806. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Web Technician (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuhius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.