Alex Coram () (Robert Gordon University, Scotland, and The University of Western Australia)
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of struggles over resources by studying a game between a producer that can guard and buy fortifications and a pirate. It is assumed that the returns from defence and raiding depends on the ratio of the resources spent on each activity and that all produced goods can be stolen. It attempts to characterise the trajectory of the resources and the defence and raiding activities of the pirate and producer. I show, among other things, that the pirate’s strategy is to farm the producer and that the pirate’s raiding activities and resources will decline as the productive capacity of the producer increases. I also show that a flexible guarding strategy may be preferred to fixed fortifications if the producer’s resources are low at any time. JEL Categories: C61, C72, P14, D00.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
2006-07.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
John W. Maxwell & Rafael Reuveny, 2004.
"Continuing Conflict,"
Working Papers
2004-27, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
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