The article reviews Vernon Ruttan's new book, Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technological Development. (Oxford University Press, 2006). The subject matter is limited to the post-World War II United States only. Studying six general-purpose technologies emerging...

The article reviews Vernon Ruttan's new book, Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technological Development. (Oxford University Press, 2006). The subject matter is limited to the post-World War II United States only. Studying six general-purpose technologies emerging...

The article discusses, first, systems control theory, which tells us how a self-regulating system, for example of social and political peace, should work. Second, it considers the theory of imperfect markets, which tells us just why peace and security frequently fail to be obtained. Third, it...

The article compares civil strife in the public arena to labor strikes in the private arena. Both are predicated on incomplete information (both sides believing they can "win," when one – and possibly both – must "lose"). Reasons for conflict, especially in Africa, include the rent-based...

The proposition that democracies are more peaceful than autocracies has spawned a huge literature. Much of the relevant quantitative research has shown that democracies indeed rarely, if ever, fight each other, although they are not necessarily less bellicose than autocracies in general. This...

That military expenditure and conflict have adverse consequences for development is unsurprising but important. The policy challenge is to reduce them. I have suggested that substantial components of military expenditure could be reduced without jeopardizing security interests. Military...

The greatest contribution that economics can make to banishing war lies in creating conditions that help keep the peace, especially in the long run. The problem is to identify the set of conditions that will generate positive incentives for nations to keep the peace and work out a set of...

Current military doctrine emphasizes the importance of development spending in reducing insurgent violence. Using data from three distinct development programs, the Afghan National Solidarity Program, USAID’s Local Governance and Community Development Program, and the U.S. military's...

During the 2000s, navies in the Asia-Pacific region have experienced a significant, if not unprecedented, bout of naval expansion. This buildup has been quantitative, but more importantly, qualitative as well, and in many cases goes beyond mere modernization. It has been driven by both rising...

Using the Uppsala Conflict Data Program's Conflict Termination Dataset, 1946-2007, we investigate determinants of war duration—how long war lasts before the onset of peace. We provide an exposition of the nature of the data and of the transformations statistical issues involved in quantifying...