IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_5399.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Value of NATO Option for a New Member

Author

Listed:
  • Vesa Kanniainen
  • Staffan Ringbom

Abstract

The paper introduces a welfarist approach to the national safety of a nation with membership in a defense alliance as an option. The members are risk averse but heterogeneous in their safety classification. There are two public goods as insurance devices, the domestic military budget and the incremental safety provided by the membership in the alliance. The commitment of the alliance in the creation of safety is, however, imperfect. A sufficient condition is stated for the non-membership. Under a positive option value of the membership, several adverse incentive effects shaping the option value are identified, including the incentive to free ride in domestic defense investment and a moral hazard effect in terms of national commitment to the defense effort. The cost of participation is determined in the spirit of the median voter theorem. The alliance equilibrium is shown to be of two potential types, a stable alliance equilibrium with a positive mass and or a degenerate one with one member only. The driving force in the adjustment of the alliance is its size relative to the safety class of the median voter. Expectations of the decision making of the co-members concerning the commitment can result in multiple equilibria.

Suggested Citation

  • Vesa Kanniainen & Staffan Ringbom, 2015. "The Value of NATO Option for a New Member," CESifo Working Paper Series 5399, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5399
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp5399.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Subhasish Chowdhury & Roman Sheremeta, 2011. "A generalized Tullock contest," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 413-420, June.
    2. Inés Macho‐Stadler & Licun Xue, 2007. "Winners and Losers from the Gradual Formation of Trading Blocs," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(296), pages 664-681, November.
    3. Tim Lohse & Julio R. Robledo & Ulrich Schmidt, 2012. "Self‐Insurance and Self‐Protection as Public Goods," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 79(1), pages 57-76, March.
    4. Weber, Shlomo & Wiesmeth, Hans, 1991. "Economic models of NATO," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 181-197, November.
    5. Ray, Debraj & Vohra, Rajiv, 1999. "A Theory of Endogenous Coalition Structures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 286-336, January.
    6. Toshihiro Ihori & Martin McGuire & Shintaro Nakagawa, 2014. "International Security, Multiple Public Good Provisions, and The Exploitation Hypothesis," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 213-229, June.
    7. Boadway, Robin & Hayashi, Masayoshi, 1999. "Country size and the voluntary provision of international public goods," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 619-638, November.
    8. Jack Hirshleifer, 1983. "From weakest-link to best-shot: The voluntary provision of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 371-386, January.
    9. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    10. Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler, 2001. "Economics of Alliances: The Lessons for Collective Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 869-896, September.
    11. Jack Hirshleifer, 1989. "Conflict and rent-seeking success functions: Ratio vs. difference models of relative success," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 251-262, Springer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michelle R. Garfinkel, 2004. "On the Stability of Group Formation: Managing the Conflict Within," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 21(1), pages 43-68, February.
    2. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2007. "Economics of Conflict: An Overview," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 649-709, Elsevier.
    3. Cubel, María & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago, 2016. "An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 92-105.
    4. Francis Bloch, 2009. "Endogenous formation of alliances in conflicts," Working Papers hal-00435387, HAL.
    5. Timothy Mathews & Shane Sanders, 2019. "Strategic and experimental analyses of conflict and terrorism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 169-174, June.
    6. Barbieri, Stefano & Malueg, David A., 2016. "Private-information group contests: Best-shot competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 219-234.
    7. Wolfgang Buchholz & Todd Sandler, 2016. "Olson’s exploitation hypothesis in a public good economy: a reconsideration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 103-114, July.
    8. Toshihiro Ihori & Martin McGuire, 2006. "Patterns of Non-exponential Growth of Macroeconomic Models: Two-parameter Poisson-Dirichlet Models," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-450, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    9. Jay Pil Choi & Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Jaesoo Kim, 2016. "Group Contests with Internal Conflict and Power Asymmetry," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 118(4), pages 816-840, October.
    10. Wolfgang Buchholz & Wolfgang Peters, 2005. "A Rawlsian Approach to International Cooperation," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 25-44, February.
    11. Toshihiro Ihori & Martin McGuire, 2006. "Group Provision Against Adversity: Security By Insurance vs. Protection," CARF F-Series CARF-F-086, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    12. María Cubel & Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2014. "Difference-form group contests," Working Papers 2014/6, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Damian S. Damianov & Shane Sanders & Anil Yildizparlak, 2018. "Asymmetric endogenous prize contests," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(3), pages 435-453, October.
    14. Johannes Münster, 2009. "Group contest success functions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 41(2), pages 345-357, November.
    15. Garfinkel, Michelle R., 2004. "Stable alliance formation in distributional conflict," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 829-852, November.
    16. María Cubel & Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2014. "Difference-form group contests," Working Papers 2014/6, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    17. Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2014. "On the escalation and de-escalation of conflict," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 40-57.
    18. Toshihiro Ihori & Martin McGuireb, 2008. "National Adversity: Managing Insurance and Protection," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-554, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    19. Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Cubel, Maria, 2015. "An axiomatization of difference-form contest success functions," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-49, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    20. Andreas Löschel & Dirk Rübbelke, 2014. "On the Voluntary Provision of International Public Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 195-204, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    alliance; national security; free riding; safety classification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5399. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.