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Volume 02, Issue 01 (April 2012)
Nisreen Salti And Jad Chaaban
https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010269012500019
Abstract
Using a dataset on 80 poverty pockets in Lebanon in 2004, we find that polarization, fractionalization and sectarian distance consistently and robustly affect a pocket’s ability to attract development assistance funds. Our results are consistent with the prerogative of confessional balance in government decisions dictated by the power-sharing game in the post-war era. They put into question the design of effective channels to allocate development funds in polarized societies.
See: https://www.worldscientific.com/toc/ijdc/02/01
2. Agency, Perception and the Economics of Internal Wars
Kelly Nelson
https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010269012500020
Abstract
Economic approaches to armed conflict have largely explained rational choice among rebel groups through quantitative analyses that focus on structural variables and ignore agency. This paper is an empirical analysis of decision-making among rebel groups in civil wars focusing on variables that actors influence. The hypothesis was that rebels calculated their expected gains and opportunity costs when deciding to engage in a civil war and that the rebels and government manipulated these expectations intentionally through actions or unintentionally through perception. In two case studies, the governments’ actions to increase the opportunity cost and input cost of rebellion, the rebels’ actions to lower their input costs and increase their chances of victory, and the rebels’ perceptions regarding their probability of victory all influenced decisions. The evidence supported the hypothesis that rebellion is a rational choice and demonstrated that agency and perceptions were more important than structural factors to the decisions.
See: https://www.worldscientific.com/toc/ijdc/02/01
Maria Estela Varua And Vivienne Saverimuttu
https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010269012500032
Abstract
This study examines the impact of growing political unrest or internal conflict on inbound tourism in the Republic of the Philippines during the period 1994 to 2011. From 2003 onwards, despite formal renunciation of terrorism by one group, the separatist MILF group, acts of violence have continued with increasing political unrest and internal conflict. At the same time an interesting trend of increasing numbers in tourist arrivals was observed from 2003 onwards. The study employs a state space model to test the factors driving tourism during the period 1994 to 2011. The results imply that despite the negative impact of internal conflict and rising inflation, the impact of past income and the inertial effect representing past experience and connectivity to the tourist destination have been sufficient to drive inbound tourism to the Philippines.
See: https://www.worldscientific.com/toc/ijdc/02/01
4. A Concise Model of Regional Decay
Geoffrey Fishburn
https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010269012500044
Abstract
Attention has long been paid to the formal modeling of the comparative statics of the expanding, or “progressive,” economy. However, even within such an economy there can be, and there have been observed to have been, parts (here designated as “regions”) which go into decline, often to the point of being, effectively, abandoned. Importantly, with decay exists the potential for conflict as people (“economic refugees”) move from degrading to other regions and/or the loss of a region’s resources intensifies competition for those which remain.
Simply reversing the “expansion” model will not, it is argued here, properly capture such cases. A concise model which represents a first attempt to do so is proposed.
See: https://www.worldscientific.com/toc/ijdc/02/01
Partha Gangopadhyay
https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010269012500056
Abstract
In early and important pieces of work, Edward Glaeser and his co-authors established that hatred responds to the incentives of both suppliers and consumers of hatred. The focus of the above strand of work is a political market in which self-seeking politicians spread hatred amongst voters for electoral motives wherefrom the supply of and demand for hatred are derived. In contrast, we model hatred between rival groups who create hatred against each other for purely economic motives such that hatred inflicts a cost upon all. In the proposed model, we are able to characterize two equilibria: first, there is a stable hatred-free equilibrium only under a very special condition. Secondly, there is also an unstable and high-hatred-equilibrium. The paper examines the implications of the multiplicity of equilibria, their existence and stability properties wherefrom we explain the economic foundation of hatred and its epidemic-like properties.