Solomon W. Polachek

Conflict and Trade

This article applies microeconomic theory to illustrate the plausibility of a relationship between international trade and conflict. It is argued that the mutual dependence established between two trading partners (dyads) is sufficient to raise the costs of conflict, there-by diminishing levels of dyadic dispute. This hypothesis of a negative relationship between conflict and trade is tested using a ten-year thirty-country cross section merged from four separate data sources. It is found that ceteris paribus countries with the greatest levels of economic trade engage in the least amounts of hostility. In fact, a doubling of trade on average leads to a 20% diminution of belligerence. This relationship appears robust, holding even more strongly when statistical adjustments are made for causality.

Why the gender gap in wages narrowed in the 1980s

Since 1976 the gender gap in wages on average declined by about 1% per year. This article focuses on identifying the factors underlying this trend. Three data sets are analyzed-the Current Population Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and the National Longitudinal Survey. We find that convergence in measurable work-related characteristics (schooling and work experience) explains one-third to one-half the narrowing. The remainder is attributable to a relative increase in womens returns to experience as well as to declining wages in blue-collar work and other factors.

Empirical Evidence on the Functional Form of the Earnings-Schooling Relationship

Abstract This article presents empirical evidence on the correct functional form of the regression relationship between earnings as regressand and schooling and experience as regressors. Evidence from several bodies of data suggests that among simple transformations the natural logarithm of earnings is the correct dependent variable while the best simple specification of the regressors is one advanced by Jacob Mincer on theoretical grounds.

Sex Differences in College Major

Analysis of sex differences in choice of college major in the United States in 1955 and 1973, using nationwide data. Data on college major distribution by sex; Analysis of differences; Empirical estimation. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

Liberalism and Interdependence: Extending the Trade-Conflict Model*

The question of whether trade affects conflict is important for public policy. To date, theoretical studies have treated trade or the gains from trade as exogenous. However, a dyads gains from trade are influenced by a number of factors, including foreign aid, tariffs, contiguity, and relative country size. This article presents a mathematical model to extend the conflict-trade model to incorporate foreign aid, tariffs, contiguity, and country size. In particular, we examine how the gains from trade are affected by these factors, with foreign aid, and contiguity increasing the gains from trade and tariffs reducing the gains from trade. Small countries have larger trade gains when trading with a large country than with a small country. If countries seek to protect their trade gains, the model predicts that foreign aid and contiguity will decrease conflict, while tariffs will increase conflict. The contiguity result suggests that conflict between neighboring countries would be greater than observed if not for the mitigating effects of trade. Trade with large countries decreases conflict more than trade with small countries. In addition, rather than concentrating solely on bilateral interactions, the models are specified in enough detail to garner implications concerning the effects of changes in the terms of trade on third parties. Empirical results, generally supporting the hypotheses, are presented using a sample from the Conflict and Peace Data Bank.

Why Democracies Cooperate More and Fight Less: The Relationship Between International Trade and Cooperation

This paper provides an economics-based interpretation of the standard finding in the literature that democracies rarely fight each other. A general theory of conflict between two countries is presented and empirical analysis applies this theory to the question of why democracies rarely fight each other. The results show that the fundamental factor in causing bilateral cooperation is trade. Countries seek to protect wealth gained through international trade, therefore trading partners are less combative than nontrading nations. Democratic dyads trade more than nondemocratic dyads, and thus exhibit less conflict and more cooperation. Copyright 1997 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A life cycle approach to migration: analysis of the perspicacious peregrinator

The authors develop a general model that incorporates into a unified theory of migration many factors of migrant selectivity not explained in existing theories. A means of analysis of several such factors including locational choice periodicity of migration and the effect of household characteristics is proposed and the mobility process is considered within a life cycle framework. The probability of migration is analyzed as dependent upon migration gains and costs computed using a simultaneous two-equation model. The model is estimated with individual U.S. household data obtained between 1971 and 1975 in the University of Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics

Conflict and Interdependence

This article investigates the relationship between interdependence and conflict, using U.S.-Warsaw Pact trade and conflict data during détente as a case study. A theoretical framework is developed in which incentives to reduce conflict are related to the desire to protect the benefits of an interaction. Asymmetric interdependence can lead to linkage diplomacy and to greater conflict reduction by one side than the other. These hypotheses are tested empirically. A strong, inverse relationship between trade and conflict is found, and trade is found to cause a greater reduction in Warsaw Pact conflict than in U.S. conflict. We further investigate the relationship between trade and conflict in various types of goods, as well as the trade/conflict relationship between the United States and the individual Warsaw Pact members. These results are of importance in understanding the use of trade and other interactions as a diplomatic tool, and in comparing the foreign policies of particular Warsaw Pact members.

Potential Biases in Measuring Male-Female Discrimination

By addressing the problem of life-cycle division of labor within the family, this study considers the question of the effect of family characteristics on both male and female earnings capacities. The paper illustrates both theoretically and empirically that being married and having children have opposite effects on the wage rates of husbands and wives, and further that these diverging wage patterns are perpetuated over the length of the marriage. Neglecting the fact that family characteristics have opposite effects on male and female wage structures leads to biases in the computation of the male-female discrimination coefficient.

Panel Estimates of Male-Female Earnings Functions

This paper applies single and simultaneous equation fixed-effects (FE) and random-effects (RE) panel data estimation techniques to obtain male and female earnings function parameters. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the paper finds that earnings appreciation with experience and depreciation with labor market intermittency are comparable for men and women. Further, skill atrophy rates increase not decrease once one controls for heterogeneity and endogeneity. Finally the unexplained male-female wage differential declines from 40 percent to 20 percent when one adjusts for heterogeneity. Adjusting for endogeneity depends very much on the choice of instruments. However, when adjusting for endogeneity the gender earnings gap falls and approaches zero percent. These results hold for two separate subsamples so that the estimates appear robust independent of sample selectivity.