Aspects of Peace Economics

Abstract

The Economics of Peace can be modeled as a basic multi-game system composed of economic games played between and among firms and consumers in each of two nations, domestic pressure games played by firms, consumers, and the government within each nation, and political games played between the governments of the two nations. The integrated study of the basic system is given in the account of two-level games (Putnam, 1988). The details of these games were sketched in Dacey (1994, 1996-a) and are updated here via the results obtained in the assassin models presented in Carlson and Dacey (2009, forthcoming). While the field has made numerous advances in the last sixteen years, the conclusion of Dacey (1994) still holds — Peace Economics, as initially characterized by Isard (1994) and Polachek (1994), consists in the resolution of conflicts arising in the multi-game system. Since the games are played rationally, the tools of Peace Economics are the tools of the general theory of rational choice.