Numerous studies suggest that communication may be a universal means to mitigate collective action problems. In this study, we challenge this view and show that the communication structure crucially determines whether communication mitigates or intensifies the problem of collective action. We...

This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker's objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender's objective is diametrically opposed. We apply two benchmark contest...

This paper examines theory and behavior in a two-player game of siege, sequential attack and defense. The attacker’s objective is to successfully win at least one battle while the defender’s objective is to win every battle. Theoretically, the defender either folds immediately or, if his...

This paper investigates whether attacks against Israeli targets help Palestinian factions gain public support. We link individual level survey data to the full list of Israeli fatalities during the period of the Second Intifada (2000-2006), and estimate a flexible discrete choice model for...

In “Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the Israeli Electorate,“ Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor analyze the causal effects of terrorist attacks on the political preferences of the Israeli electorate. In this comment, I discuss Berrebi and Klor's empirical approach -...

In this chapter, we examine how some of the main results in international trade theory fare when we abandon the traditional assumption of third-party enforcement of property rights. Without such enforcement, countries arm and exercise power to secure resources used in production or to secure the...

The paper suggests a framework for evaluating the relevance of strategies of private sector development in fostering sustained economic turnaround in fragile and post-conflict situations. It highlights how fragility, violence and conflict change economic structures, introducing distortions,...

This paper examines the relationship between inequality and economic growth using conflict models and computational simulations. I construct a dynamic sequential conflict model that allows us to observe the cumulative effect of inequalities in wealth and ability in a single framework. The...

This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker’s objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender’s objective is diametrically opposed .We apply two benchmark contest...

I analyze how ownership can be structured to minimize the haggling costs due to contractual incompleteness. I model haggling as a contest in which integration gives the integrating party a relative advantage over the integrated party. In a one-period model, this implies that the contest will...