Linking Conflict to Inequality and Polarization.

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June 2011
Debraj Ray and Joan Esteban
American Economic Review Vol. 101, No. 4, 1345–74.

In this paper we study a behavioral model of conflict that provides a basis for choosing certain indices of dispersion as indicators for conflict. We show that a suitable monotone transform of the equilibrium level of conflict can be proxied by a linear function of the Gini coefficient, the Herfindahl-Hirschman fractionalization index, and a specific measure of polarization due to Esteban and Ray.