Petros G. Sekeris (Montpellier Business School) will present the paper "The role of markets and preferences on resource conflicts" (joint with Alex Dickson, Ian A. MacKenzie).
Abstract:
We develop a generalized theory of resource conflict. We demonstrate that the existence of a resource curse (or blessing) relies on two fundamental elements: (i) market conditions; and (ii) agents’ preferences. When resource prices are treated as exogenous, we obtain the conventional result, where an increase in the value of the resource rent (lower opportunity cost of appropriation) increases conflict. However, when the price of the contestable resource is endogeneously set (i.e., locally determined) or if markets do not exist, we find the opposite result may hold depending on the nature of agents’ preferences: conflict can increase when the contestable resource becomes scarcer. Our article therefore identifies a fundamental transmission mechanism in resource conflicts.
Registration: till noon of December 3