A rent‐seeking model of international competition and alliances∗

This paper presents an alternative approach for analyzing international competition and alliances as rent‐seeking contests that are able to capture the impure public good nature of defense spending. Two‐country Cournot and Stackelberg games are considered and comparative static results derived. A three‐country model is investigated, and alliance behavior is explored in the context of this rent‐seeking model. The conjecture that an alliance may become less effective if the allies’ interests become more closely aligned is verified. Finally, the model is generalized, and a Nash‐Cournot equilibrium is computed.     

A simple and untraditional analysis of western alliance burden‐sharing

The original Olson and Zeckhauser model of alliance burden‐sharing was based on the following four assumptions: (1) alliance defence is a pure public good; (2) allied nations make their security contribution decisions without consulting the other allies; (3) alliances produce only a single public good; and (4) alliance defence is produced with equal degrees of efficiency in all alliance nations. But while the first of these assumptions has received a great deal of attention in the alliance literature, the remaining ones have received comparatively less attention, particularly in terms of empirical analyses. This paper synthesizes a varied literature developed around these four assumptions, both substantively and theoretically, and shows that when these assumptions are brought closer to real world approximations, hypotheses regarding the potential for security cooperation with less free‐riding result. This article also provides a simple test of Western alliance burden‐sharing in the areas of military spending, development resources spending, and research and development spending that supports the hypothesis positing more equitable burden‐sharing.     

The effect of deployment on first‐ and second‐term re‐enlistment in the US active duty force

Why should deployment affect re‐enlistment? In our model, members enter the military with naïve beliefs about deployment and use actual deployment experience to update their beliefs and revise their expected utility of re‐enlisting. Empirically, re‐enlistment is related to the type and number of deployments, consistent with the learning model. Non‐hostile deployment increases first‐term re‐enlistment but hostile deployment has little effect except for the Army, where the effect is positive. Both types increase second‐term re‐enlistment. Interestingly, first‐term members with dependants tend to respond to deployment like second‐term members. In addition, deployment acts directly to affect re‐enlistment, not indirectly through time to promotion.     

The impact of military spending cutbacks on economic activity in an incentive‐wage two‐sector aggregative economy∗

We examine the theoretical outcomes of disarmament on economic activity in a two‐sector model of endogenous equilibrium unemployment rate. Three main shocks are analyzed: Exogenous cutbacks in military spending on the capital good and employment, and a reduction in public sector debt. The first shock is contractionary for equilibrium employment if the capital‐goods producing sector is relatively labour‐intensive but expansionary under the alternative factor intensity assumption. The second shock is contractionary for employment under either relative factor intensity assumption. If Ricardian equivalence fails, a reduction in public sector debt is likely to expand long‐term employment (JEL E24).     

Communication: Wrap‐up on the cost of the gulf war

This paper discusses how crises and war may “disrupt” company activities, and how companies adapt to these disruptions. Croatia is used as a case study. The original hypothesis was that war led to breaks in physical flows: in other words, that companies experienced difficulties in importing and obtaining supplies of goods. Instead, it appears that loss of customers and severely worsened conditions of payment were the principal problems for Croatian companies. Although it does not fall within the scope of this investigation, it is interesting to note that the Croatian government has not imposed any direct rationing on the industrial sector, but rather via the banking system.     

Rent‐seeking models of international competition: An experimental investigation*

This paper experimentally tests a number of hypotheses that follow from models of international competition that are based on Tullock style rent‐seeking models. Specifically, we designed and performed experiments to see how variations in the degree of publicness in the prize as well as changes in the values assigned to the prize affect alliances in terms of individual nation contributions, total contributions, burden sharing, and the likelihood of winning the prize. While there was substantial variation in individual behavior, the results of the experiments generally conform to the theoretical predictions of the rent‐seeking model of international competition and alliances.     

Ridge regression analysis of the defence‐growth tradeoff in the United States

An examination of past analyses suggests that today's sailors may be less responsive to compensation changes than previous generations. Such a change could make recruiting and retaining high‐quality sailors more difficult. However, variation in researchers' decisions over time may simply have created the appearance of such a change. Our results suggest there is little variation in the pay elasticity over time. In contrast, the different reduced‐form models we use to measure this relationship can explain most of the variation in the literature. Therefore, the evidence suggests that while sailors may have changed over time, their response to compensation has not.     

The structure of defense production in the United States, 1929‐∗

This article contains a critical review of the literature on the economics of military affairs in Greece and Turkey as of December 1999. In particular, I review (a) arms race models; (b) models of the demand for military expenditure; (c) models measuring the economic impact of military expenditure; and (d) literature and issues related to indigenous arms production. I conclude with a number of summary lessons and observations of how future research might improve upon the existing body of work.     

Insurgency online: Elements for a theory of anti‐government Internet communications

The article takes the cases of Peru's Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) as the pont of departure to discuss how a insurgent political movement uses the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW). During the 1996–97 Japanese Embassy hostage incident in Lima, Peru, MRTA supporters in Japan, Europe and North America used online technology to relay the group's message to a global public. The resulting direct media access provided the MRTA with an unprecendented level of global publicity. Through referring to the ‘MRTA Solidarity Page’, the types of message transmitted, the forms of transmission (text, video, audio, e‐mail or other), and target publics (national, global, political elites, media), the article outlines the issues and theoretical challenges raised by electronic anti‐government information provision. The Internet and WWW do not alone constitute the threat to state power as some analysts suggest but does in some sense dramatically alter political communication. New media will probably co‐exist with other forms of political communication for some time.