TY - JOUR

T1 - Political economy of dynamic resource wars

AU - van der Ploeg, Frederick

PY - 2018/11/1

Y1 - 2018/11/1

N2 - The political economy of exhaustible resource extraction is analysed in three contexts. First, if an incumbent faces a threat of being removed once and for all by a rival faction, extraction becomes more voracious if the factions do not share rents equally. Second, perennial political conflict cycles are more inefficient if constitutional cohesiveness or the partisan in-office bias is large and political instability is high. Third, resource wars are more intense if constitutional cohesiveness is weak, the incumbent has a partisan in-office bias, reserves of resources are high, the wage is low, governments can be less frequently removed from office, and fighting technology has less decreasing returns to scale. Resource depletion in such wars is more rapacious if there is more government instability, the political system is less cohesive, and the partisan in-office bias is smaller.

AB - The political economy of exhaustible resource extraction is analysed in three contexts. First, if an incumbent faces a threat of being removed once and for all by a rival faction, extraction becomes more voracious if the factions do not share rents equally. Second, perennial political conflict cycles are more inefficient if constitutional cohesiveness or the partisan in-office bias is large and political instability is high. Third, resource wars are more intense if constitutional cohesiveness is weak, the incumbent has a partisan in-office bias, reserves of resources are high, the wage is low, governments can be less frequently removed from office, and fighting technology has less decreasing returns to scale. Resource depletion in such wars is more rapacious if there is more government instability, the political system is less cohesive, and the partisan in-office bias is smaller.

KW - Cohesiveness

KW - Contests

KW - D81

KW - Dynamic resource wars

KW - Exploitation investment

KW - H20

KW - Hold-up problem

KW - Partisan bias

KW - Political conflict

KW - Q31

KW - Q38

KW - Rapacious depletion

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85032033045&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jeem.2017.09.002

DO - 10.1016/j.jeem.2017.09.002

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85032033045

VL - 92

SP - 765

EP - 782

JO - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

JF - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

SN - 0095-0696

ER -