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Peace and War in Territorial Disputes

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Why do sovereign states sometimes fail to settle territorial disputes peacefully? Also, why do even peaceful settlements of territorial disputes rarely call for the resulting border to be unfortified? This paper explores a class of answers to these questions that is based on the following premise: States can settle a territorial dispute peacefully only if (1) their payoffs from a peaceful settlement are larger than their expected payoffs from a default to war, and (2) their promises not to attack are credible. This premise directs the analysis to such factors as the advantage of attacking over both defending and counterattacking, the divisibility of the contested territory, the possibility of recurring war, the depreciation or obsolescence of fortifications, and inequality in the effectiveness of mobilized resources.
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  • Herschel Grossman, 2004. "Peace and War in Territorial Disputes," Working Papers 2004-07, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bro:econwp:2004-07
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    1. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2005. "War, peace, and the size of countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(7), pages 1333-1354, July.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Ivan Lopez Cruz & Gustavo Torrens, 2019. "The paradox of power revisited: internal and external conflict," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(2), pages 421-460, September.
    4. Herschel I. Grossman, 2013. "Choosing Between Peace and War," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 765-783, November.
    5. Kolmar, Martin, 2005. "The contribution of Herschel I. Grossman to political economy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 802-814, December.
    6. Dario Maimone Ansaldo Patti & Daniel Montolio, 2014. "Bargaining in international conflicts resolution: UN involvement and conflict settlement," Chapters, in: Francesco Forte & Ram Mudambi & Pietro Maria Navarra (ed.), A Handbook of Alternative Theories of Public Economics, chapter 19, pages 443-471, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Yang-Ming Chang & Shane Sanders, 2009. "Raising The Cost Of Rebellion: The Role Of Third-Party Intervention In Intrastate Conflict," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 149-169.
    8. Dario Maimone Ansaldo Patti & Pietro Navarra & Giuseppe Sobbrio, 2022. "Insecure Property Rights and Conflicts: How to Solve Them?," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-32, December.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War

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