Date of Submission

5-28-2021

Date of Award

5-28-2022

Institute Name (Publisher)

Indian Statistical Institute

Document Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Subject Name

Quantitative Economics

Department

Economic Research Unit (ERU-Kolkata)

Supervisor

Dasgupta, Indraneel (ERU-Kolkata; ISI)

Abstract (Summary of the Work)

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.In Chapter 2 the ethno-linguistic policy itself is the site of contestation, in Chapter 3 the role of fragmentation within the conflicting groups is the fundamental determinant under focus and in Chapter 4 the individual liberty (or lack of it, due to the decreed norms) is the point of study to unravel the economic and policy implications. Chapter 2 analyses the policy implications surrounding a possible blanket imposition of alien ethno-linguistic norms through coercive language policy and the contingent conflict due to the consequent redistribution of the resources within the community. The extant property rights emerge as a crucial determinant of the economic outcomes in this scenario. Chapter 3 formalizes the mesmerising role of the extent of within-group fragmentations in determining the productive and rent-seeking activities in the presence of a conflictual public good between the groups. We show that in this framework fragmentation can be beneficial in certain contexts. Here, we show that in this context public good provisioning cannot be straight away taken as an indicator of the well-being. Chapter 4 deals with the role of the laws of liberty and individual rights in a sufficiently secularized society. We show how the laws on liberty can accentuate or mitigate conflict between the religious and secular groups, and how these outcomes put the policy maker in front of complex policy dilemmas.

Comments

ProQuest Collection ID: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:28842745

Control Number

ISILib-TH

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

http://dspace.isical.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/10263/2146

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