Blood diamonds: international policy options for conflict resolution

Abstract

We construct a trade-theoretic model of two open economies which are in conflict with each other. War efforts-which involve the use of soldiers and military hardware-are determined endogenously. The purpose of war is the capture of land containing a natural resource like diamond, but the costs are that lives are lost and production sacrificed. The capture of mining land helps to reinforce the war by using profits from the sale of the natural resource to purchase arms. We examine the effect of a number of policy instruments available to the international community (such as foreign aid, a tax on arms exports and on the export of the natural resource from the war areas) on war efforts. We identify the role of the 'protective' nature of arms, and of income effects of the policy instruments, on the results.

War and Business: What Does Literature Have to Say on the Subject?

“…All states mentioned by the authors were included in the analysis. In some cases, regions were mentioned broadly such as in the studies by Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski (2012) and Lahiri (2010) who addressed the African continent in general. It was not always possible to identify the region that the author was referring to because, despite mentioning several countries in his texts, they were only presented for the purpose of argumentation without directly addressing any of them, as in the cases of Mehlum, Moene, and Torvik (2002) and Nordstrom (2008).…”

“…A fourth and final approach deals with possible solutions to these conflicts. Although Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski (2012) and Orogun (2010) have addressed possible factors for resolving conflicts on the African continent to a certain extent, only Lahiri (2010) was more incisive about possible solutions. The author studied the effects of four policies available to the international community with the objective of resolving conflicts involving "blood diamonds": foreign aid, taxes on the export of military material, taxes on "blood diamonds" (an indirect trade sanction), and taxes on diamond exports in general ("blood" or not) from conflict zones.…”

A Mobilidade Internacional Voluntária Vivida em Riso, Choro e Ressignificação: Experiências de Brasileiros Compartilhadas em Canais no Youtube

“…Todos os Estados mencionados pelos autores foram incluídos na análise. Em alguns casos, regiões eram mencionadas de forma ampla, por exemplo nos estudos de Akcinaroglu e Radziszewski (2012) e Lahiri (2010), que abordaram o continente africano de maneira geral. Nem sempre foi possível identificar a região que o autor se referia, pois, apesar de mencionarem diversos países em seus textos, somente apresentava-os para fins de argumentação, sem abordar diretamente nenhum deles, como nos casos de Mehlum, Moene e Torvik (2002) e Nordstrom (2008).…”

Why Might Climate Change Not Cause Conflict? An Agent-Based Computational Response

“…While these types of models were originally developed to study topics in property rights protection, later versions were applied to explore issues such as rent-seeking behavior and resource conflicts (Garfinkel and Skaperdas, 2007;Hausken, 2005;Lahiri, 2010;Muthoo, 2004).…”