This paper develops an economic theory of empire building. This theory addresses the choice among three strategies that empire builders historically have used. We call these strategies Uncoerced Annexation, Coerced Annexation, and Attempted Conquest. The theory yields hypotheses that relate the...

This paper analyses a general-equilibrium model of the complementarity between economic competition for the allegiance of subjects and military competition for the control of land. In our model economic competition between rival rulers for the allegiance of subjects results in their subjects,...

This paper formalizes the commonsensical hypothesis that resource scarcity causes a large allocation of time and effort to appropriative competition. Our main innovation is to model explicitly the positive intertemporal effect of consumption on the probability of survival. The critical...