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

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...

In many countries, especially poor countries, a heavy burden of taxes, bribes, and bureaucratic hassles drives many producers into the informal sector. Is this situation explicable only as a consequence of either the ignorance or the ineptitude of the state authorities? On the contrary this...

This paper develops an explanation for historical differences in the ways in which territorial disputes between sovereign states have been resolved. The main innovation in the analysis is to allow for three possible equilibria: - an unfortified border; - a fortified but peaceful border; and -...

The main objective of this paper is to understand and to evaluate recently expressed popular anxiety about large American fiscal deficits. The paper begins with a discussion of problems involved in measuring the fiscal deficit. A general conclusion is that all interesting measures of the federal...

This paper uses contemporaneous monetary data to carry out econometric tests of the "equilibrium" approach to modeling the relation between monetary disturbances and macroeconomic fluctuations. The theoretical analysis introduces into an equilibrium macroeconomic model the availability of...