News Summary

• The value of human life and the frequency of violence are jointly determined by weapons technology and economic conditions.
• Lethal weapons deter conflict but raise mortality, taxing the future returns to investing in one’s livelihood.
• When those returns are high, deterrence dominates and peace and investment reinforce each other.
• When they are low, the mortality tax dominates, agents divest from the future, the value of life falls, and violence deepens.
• That is from a new paper by Samuel Lee, Ilari Passivirta, and Alexander Zentefis, via the excellent Kevin Lewis.