Essays on the economics of conflict/ Ranajoy Guha Neogi

Thesis(Ph.D.) - Indian Statistical Institute, 2021

Introduction -- Decolonization, Property Rights and Language Conflicts -- Between-group contests over group-specific public goods with within-group
fragmentation -- Liberty and Conflict

Guided by Prof. Indraneel Dasgupta

The thesis encompasses three chapters which provide policy-relevant insights into the domain
of conflict economics. The research endeavour goes deep into exploring the underlying
linkages of varied economic and non-economic factors (e.g., culture, religion and myriads of
ethnic factors) leading to the multiple facets of economic outcomes. The analyses in the thesis,
which fall in the realm of applied microeconomic theory, are facilitated by different tools of
game theory and public economics. Although the focuses of these chapters lie in the domain
of economics of conflict (and its policy implications under different situations), each chapter
addresses the conflicts engendered in different scenarios such as conflict emanating from
imposed language policy, underlying ethnic fragmentations within communities and the
consequent productive and rent-seeking activities and the policy implications of promulgating
individual rights in the presence of religiosity (or the lack of it) in the society. The rent seeking
activities (in terms of exerted effort or in pecuniary terms) in our models endogenously emerge
out of rational decisions of the agents at their end in the contexts under consideration. The delineation of the linkages between different economic and non-economic factors through the frameworks of the interacting agents, leads us to divulge the fabrics behind the observed instances of wasteful conflict in so many forms and to comprehend the driving forces behind the economic outcomes. This analysis also helps us to realize the logic behind the apparently counter-intuitive occurrences and consequent policy challenges