The Economics of Conflict and Peace

This work addresses new directions in research on the economic theory of conflict, the cost of war, and the benefits of peace. A collection of 17 papers drawing on contributors from all continents, the volume is divided into four sections. The first discusses novel ways to think about the economics of conflict and peace from theory perspectives. These include discussions of conflict from the perspectives of standard neoclassical analysis and economic geography. An especially interesting paper in this section addresses conflict in the context of the emerging theory of international public finance. A second section deals with military expenditures, economic/human development and economic growth in the US and developing nations of Asia and Africa. The volume enters new territory in sections three and four. Section three contains a set of papers on the economic cost of war and war’s aftermath, significantly expanding economists’ rather modest efforts to date. Section four is concerned with how the concepts of economics might be operationalized and institutionalized to foster security.