@article{Harrison:269890,
      recid = {269890},
      author = {Harrison, Mark and Wolf, Nikolaus},
      title = {The Frequency of Wars},
      address = {2009-12-14},
      number = {2068-2018-1654},
      pages = {20},
      year = {2009},
      abstract = {Wars are increasingly frequent, and the trend has been  steadily upward since 1870. The main tradition of Western  political and philosophical thought suggests that extensive  economic globalization and democratization over this period  should have reduced appetites for war far below their  current level. This view is clearly incomplete: at best,  confounding factors are at work. Here, we explore the  capacity to wage war. Most fundamentally, the growing  number of sovereign states has been closely associated with  the spread of democracy and increasing commercial openness,  as well as the number of bilateral conflicts. Trade and  democracy are traditionally thought of as goods, both in  themselves, and because they reduce the willingness to go  to war, conditional on the national capacity to do so. But  the same factors may also have been increasing the capacity  for war, and so its frequency. We need better understanding  of how to promote these goods without incurring adverse  side-effects on world peace},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/269890},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.269890},
}