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Political Economy Of Dynamic Resource Wars

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  • Rick Van der Ploeg
Abstract
The political economy of natural resource extraction is analysed in three different contexts. First, if an incumbent faces a threat of being removed once and for all by a rival faction, extraction becomes more voracious, especially if the rebel faction shares rents much more than the incumbent. Second, perennial political conflict cycles are more inefficient if cohesiveness of the constitution or the partisan in-office bias is large and political instability is high. Third, resource wars are more intense if the political system is less cohesive, there is a partisan in-office bias of the incumbent, oil reserves 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Rick Van der Ploeg, 2012. "Political Economy Of Dynamic Resource Wars," OxCarre Working Papers 097, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:097
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    Cited by:

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    2. Donato Masciandaro, 2023. "Politicians, Trust and Financial Literacy: When Do Politicians Care?," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 23206, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    3. Panel, Sophie & Pietri, Antoine, 2022. "God did not save the kings: Environmental consequences of the 1982 Falklands War," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    4. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2020. "Race to burn the last ton of carbon and the risk of stranded assets," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    political conflict; cohesiveness; partisan bias; dynamic resource wars; contests; rapacious depletion; exploitation investment; hold-up problem;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • Q31 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q38 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy (includes OPEC Policy)

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