IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v66y2025i2p491-526.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On The Economic Mechanics Of Warfare

Author

Listed:
  • Guillaume Vandenbroucke

Abstract

How do war‐related expenditures affect economically relevant outcomes at a war's conclusion (e.g., prevailing side, duration, and casualties)? I present a model of attrition and characterize the effects of resources at a military conclusion (one side cannot fight anymore) and a political conclusion (one side quits). I analyze the Pacific War through the lenses of the model, both theoretically and empirically. I find that a parsimonious parameterization reproduces the aggregate patterns of destruction, measured in ship tonnage, for both belligerents.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2025. "On The Economic Mechanics Of Warfare," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 66(2), pages 491-526, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:66:y:2025:i:2:p:491-526
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12740
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12740
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12740?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2016. "War and Relatedness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(5), pages 925-939, December.
    2. David Croix & Davide Dottori, 2008. "Easter Island’s collapse: a tale of a population race," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 27-55, March.
    3. J. H. Engel, 1954. "A Verification of Lanchester's Law," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 2(2), pages 163-171, May.
    4. Francesco Caselli & Wilbur John Coleman II, 2013. "On The Theory Of Ethnic Conflict," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 161-192, January.
    5. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1991. "The Technology of Conflict as an Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 130-134, May.
    6. Patrick S. Chen & Peter Chu, 2001. "Applying Lanchester's linear law to model the Ardennes campaign," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(8), pages 653-661, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Gregory Hildebrandt, 1999. "The military production function," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 247-272.
    9. Thomas W. Lucas & Turker Turkes, 2004. "Fitting Lanchester equations to the battles of Kursk and Ardennes," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 95-116, February.
    10. Ran Abramitzky & Adeline Delavande & Luis Vasconcelos, 2011. "Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 124-157, July.
    11. Jerome Bracken, 1995. "Lanchester models of the ardennes campaign," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 559-577, June.
    12. Ronald D. Fricker, 1998. "Attrition models of the Ardennes campaign," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(1), pages 1-22, February.
    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. Ian R. Johnson & Niall J. MacKay, 2011. "Lanchester models and the battle of Britain," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(3), pages 210-222, April.
    2. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    3. 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.
    4. Pierre PECHER, 2013. "Ethnic conflict, power dynamics and growth," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2014008, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    5. Gerardo Minguela-Castro & Ruben Heradio & Carlos Cerrada, 2021. "Automated Support for Battle Operational–Strategic Decision-Making," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(13), pages 1-15, June.
    6. Patrick S. Chen & Peter Chu, 2001. "Applying Lanchester's linear law to model the Ardennes campaign," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(8), pages 653-661, December.
    7. Anelí Bongers & José L. Torres, 2021. "A bottleneck combat model: an application to the Battle of Thermopylae," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 2859-2877, December.
    8. Kjell Hausken & John F. Moxnes, 2005. "Approximations and empirics for stochastic war equations," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(7), pages 682-700, October.
    9. Thomas W. Lucas & Turker Turkes, 2004. "Fitting Lanchester equations to the battles of Kursk and Ardennes," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 95-116, February.
    10. C-Y Hung & G K Yang & P S Deng & T Tang & S-P Lan & P Chu, 2005. "Fitting Lanchester's square law to the Ardennes Campaign," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(8), pages 942-946, August.
    11. Chad W. Seagren & Donald P. Gaver & Patricia A. Jacobs, 2019. "A stochastic air combat logistics decision model for Blue versus Red opposition," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(8), pages 663-674, December.
    12. Zhengping Zhang, 2024. "The buffer role of emotions in international conflict: theoretical evidence supporting for patriotic education," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 487-503, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Shinde, Nilesh N. & Do Valle, Stella Z. Schons & Maia, Alexandre Gori & Amacher, Gregory S., 2022. "Can an environmental policy contribute to the reduction of land conflict? Evidence from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) in the Brazilian Amazon," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322584, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. P.S. Sheeba & Debasish Ghose, 2008. "Optimal resource allocation and redistribution strategy in military conflicts with Lanchester square law attrition," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(6), pages 581-591, September.
    16. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Mark Koyama & Youhong Lin & Tuan-Hwee Sng, 2023. "The Fractured-Land Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 1173-1231.
    17. Samuel Bazzi & Matthew Gudgeon, 2021. "The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 235-266, January.
    18. Friedhelm Hentschel, 2022. "Third-party intervention in secessions," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 65-82, March.
    19. Kress, Moshe & Caulkins, Jonathan P. & Feichtinger, Gustav & Grass, Dieter & Seidl, Andrea, 2018. "Lanchester model for three-way combat," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(1), pages 46-54.
    20. M.P. Wiper & L.I. Pettit & K.D.S. Young, 2000. "Bayesian inference for a Lanchester type combat model," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(7), pages 541-558, October.

    More about this item

    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:wly:iecrev:v:66:y:2025:i:2:p:491-526. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.