Tournaments, conflict, and rent-seeking have been modelled as contests in which participants exert effort to increase their probability of winning a prize. A Contest Success Function (CSF) provides each player's probability of winning as a function of all players' efforts. In this paper the...

I critically review recent studies that estimate those costs of violence and conflict that can emerge among organized political groupings, from states, religious and ethnic organizations to guerillas and paramilitaries. The review includes studies that estimate direct and indirect costs due to...

Tournaments, conflicts, and rent-seeking have been modeled as contests in which participants exert effort to increase their probability of winning a prize. A Contest Success Function (CSF) provides each player's probability of winning as a function of all players' efforts. In this paper, the...

We explore how peace or war can occur in the presence of commitment problems. These problems can be reduced by institutions of good governance or, alternatively, state capacity which (a) can be considered a collective good and (b) can be improved through investments. We show how the likelihood...

We construct a model of conflict and trade to study the consequences of interstate disputes over contested resources (land, oil, water or other resources) for arming, welfare and trade flows. Different trade regimes imply different costs of such disputes in terms of arming. Depending on world...