NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

International Conflict, Defense Spending and the Size of Countries

Alberto Alesina, Enrico Spolaore

NBER Working Paper No. 5694*
Issued in August 1996
NBER Program(s):   ME

This paper provides a formal model of endogenous country formation and of choice of defense spending in a world with international conflict. The model is consistent with three observations. First, secessions and, more generally, break-up of countries should follow a reduction in the likelihood of international conflict. Second, the number of regional conflicts between smaller countries may increase as a result of the break-up of larger countries. Third, the size of the peace divided -- i.e., the reduction in the defense spending in a more peaceful world -- is limited by the process of country break-up.

*Published: Alesina, Ablerto and Enrico Spolaore. "Conflict, Defense Spending, And The Number Of Nations," European Economic Review, 2006, v50(1,Jan), 91-120.

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

Information about Free Papers

You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, a journalist, a site with your domain name in ".GOV", or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If you usually get free papers at work/university but do not at home, you can either connect to your work VPN or proxy (if any) or elect to have a link to the paper emailed to your work email address below. The email address must be connected to a subscribing college, university, or other subscribing institution. Gmail and other free email addresses will not have access.

E-mail:

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

 
Publications
Activities
Meetings
Data
People
About

National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-868-3900; email: info@nber.org