We introduce labour market imperfections (i.e. unions and the existence of a wage floor) in a finance-constrained monetary economy with heterogenous agents and increasing returns to scale due to labour and capital productive externalities. We find that indeterminacy emerges for empirically...

We discuss the effects of unions in the labour market on steady-state multiplicity and welfare, and on the occurrence of local indeterminacy, local bifurcations and (stochastic and deterministic) endogenous fluctuations driven by self-fulfilling expectations. We consider an overlapping...

This Paper considers the efficiency and convergence properties of dynamic processes of social and economic interactions, such as exchange economies, multilateral negotiations, merger and divestiture transactions, or legislative bargaining. The key general feature of the economy is that agents...

We consider the properties of perfectly discriminating contests in which players' abilities are stochastic, but become common knowledge before efforts are expended. Players whose expected ability is lower than that of their rivals may still earn a positive expected payoff from participating in...

Conventional wisdom in economic history suggests that conflict between countries can be enormously disruptive of economic activity, especially international trade. Yet nothing is known empirically about these effects in large samples. We study the effects of war on bilateral trade for almost all...

Hierarchy can function as an instrument to channel influence activities or power struggles in organizations. Contrary to what has frequently been argued, we show that multi-divisional organizations may involve lower influence costs than single-tier organizations, even though they offer more...

Why is there delay in contests? In this Paper we follow and extend the line of reasoning of Carl von Clausewitz to explain delay. For a given contest technology, delay may occur if there is an asymmetry between defense and attack, if the expected change in relative strengths is moderate, and if...

The conventional wisdom in political science is that for a democracy to be consoliated, all groups must have a chance to attain power. If they do not then they will subvert democracy and choose to fight for power. In this paper we show that this wisdom is, if not totally incorrect, seriously...

We construct a dynamic theory of civil conflict hinging on inter-ethnic trust and trade. The model economy is inhabitated by two ethnic groups. Inter-ethnic trade requires imperfectly observed bilateral investments and one group has to form beliefs on the average propensity to trade of the other...

This paper uses detailed information on the latitude and longitude of conflict events in Sub-Saharan African countries to study the impact of external income shocks on the likelihood of violence. We consider a number of external demand shocks faced by the countries or the regions within...