This paper shows how predation breaks the links between an economy's aggregate resourceendowment and aggregate consumption and between the interpersonal distribution of endowments and the interpersonal distribution of consumption. We construct a general-equilibrium model in which some people...

Some polities are able to use constitutionally prescribed political processes to settle distributional disputes, whereas in other polities distributional disputes result in civil conflict. Theoretical analysis reveals that the following properties help to make it possible to design a...

Both common sense and historical examples suggest that resource scarcity causes appro- priative con ict as people struggle with each other to avoid hunger and starvation. But, economic intuition, also supported by historical examples, suggests that resource abundance, by giving people more to...