The Uncertainty Trade-off

Reexamining Opportunity Costs and War

Bibliographic Data

ID6273511
AuthorsWilliam Spaniel (0000-0002-6733-385X, University of Pittsburgh), Iris Malone (0000-0003-2487-2754, Stanford University)
Year2019
Volume63
Issue4
Pages1025-1034
Publication date2019-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/isq/sqz050
OpenAlexW2964371107
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited37

Conventional wisdom about economic interdependence and international conflict predicts that increasing opportunity costs make war less likely, but some wars occur after costs grow. Why? We develop a model that shows that a nonmonotonic relationship exists between the costs and probability of war when there is uncertainty over resolve. Under these conditions, increasing the costs of an uninformed party's opponent has a second-order effect of exacerbating informational asymmetries about that opponent's willingness to maintain peace. We derive conditions under which war can occur more frequently and empirically showcase the model's implications through a case study of Sino-Indian relations from 1949 to 2007. This finding challenges how scholars traditionally believe economic interdependence mediates incentives to fight: instruments such as trade have competing effects on the probability of war

Adversary · Economic interdependence · Economics · Incentive · Microeconomics · Opportunity cost · Order (exchange · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Trade war · Computer Science · International Development and Aid · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Political Conflict and Governance

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