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The Costs of War: A Rational Expectations Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Abstract

A model of war costs is presented that is based on the utility nations expect to derive from the war as well as on the technological gap between adversaries and the short-term tactical tit-for-tat calculations that must occur on the battlefield. This model explains nearly three-quarters of the variance in battle deaths per million population per month of war experienced by war initiators. Approximately one-quarter of the variance in war costs is accounted for by considering the position of the initiator's opponent. A second model, based on marginal changes in expected utility, technological differences, and tit-for-tat, is shown to account for more than one-third the variance, regardless of whether war costs are viewed by the initiator or an opponent in a war. This study, therefore, provides a useful explanation of war intensity and contributes to the cumulative, lawlike implications of the expected-utility approach on which it is based.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 347 - 357
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1983

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