We explain why economic conflicts and illegal business often take place in poor countries. We use the concept of subsistence level of consumption (d) and assume a regular concave utility function for consumption levels higher than d. For consumption levels lower than d utility is constant and...

We model conflict between two agents in which each one has two possible strategies: cease-fire or rejection of the truce. We use the concept of pre-donations, namely, a redefinition of the game in which each agent commits to transfer a share of its output to the other agent (Sertel, 1991)....