JOAN ESTEBAN and JÓZSEF SÁKOVICS OLSON VS. COASE: COALITIONAL WORTH IN CONFLICT

n o 3 Olson vs . Coase : coalitional worth in

We analyze a model of conflict with endogenous choice of effort, where subsets of the contenders may force the resolution to be sequential: First the alliance fights it out with the rest and – in case they win – later they fight it out among themselves. For three-player games, we find that it will not be in the interest of any two of them to form an alliance. We obtain this result under two dif...

Polarization, Fractionalization and Conflict

Linking Conflict to Inequality and Polarization

In this paper we study a behavioral model of conflict that provides a basis for choosing certain indices of dispersion as indicators for conflict. We show that the (equilibrium) level of conflict can be expressed as an (approximate) linear function of the Gini coefficient, the Herfindahl-Hirschman fractionalization index, and a specific measure of polarization due to Esteban and Ray. JEL-Classi...

LINKING CONFLICT TO INEQUALITY AND POLARIZATION By

In this paper we study a behavioral model of conflict that provides a basis for choosing certain indices of dispersion as indicators for conflict. We show that a suitable monotone transform of the equilibrium level of conflict can be proxied by a linear function of the Gini coefficient, the Herfindahl-Hirschman fractionalization index, and a specific measure of polarization due to Esteban and R...

Ethnicity and Conflict: An Empirical Study

This paper examines the impact of ethnic divisions on conflict. The empirical specification is informed by a theoretical model of conflict (Esteban and Ray, 2011) in which equilibrium conflict intensity is related to just three distributional indices of diversity: ethnic polarization, ethnic fractionalization, and a Greenberg-Gini index of “difference” constructed across ethnic groups. Our empi...