TY  - JOUR
AU  - Grossman,Herschel I.
TI  - Peace and War in Territorial Disputes
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10601
PY  - 2004
Y2  - July 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10601
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10601.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Herschel Grossman
Department of Economics
Box B
Brown University
Providence, RI  02912
Tel: 401/863-2606
Fax: 401/863-1970
AB  - Why do sovereign states sometimes fail to settle territorial disputes peacefully? Also, why do even peaceful settlements of territorial disputes rarely call for the resulting border to be unfortified? This paper explores a class of answers to these questions that is based on the following premise: States can settle a territorial dispute peacefully only if (1) their payoffs from a peaceful settlement are larger than their expected payoffs from a default to war, and (2) their promises not to attack are credible. This premise directs the analysis to such factors as the advantage of attacking over both defending and counterattacking, the divisibility of the contested territory, the possibility of recurring war, the depreciation or obsolescence of fortifications, and inequality in the effectiveness of mobilized resources.
ER  -