Is the peace dividend from trade as large as traditional gains from trade?

There is a new article by Seitz, Tarasov, and and Zakharenko:

This paper develops a quantitative model of trade, military conflicts, and defense spending. Lowering trade costs between two countries reduces probability of an armed conflict between them, causing both to cut defense spending. This in turn causes a domino effect on defense spending by other countries. As a result, both countries and the rest of the world are better off. We estimate the model using data on trade, conflicts, and military spending. We find that, after reduction of costs of trade between a pair of hostile countries, the welfare effect of worldwide defense spending cuts is comparable in magnitude to the direct welfare gains from trade.

There are ungated versions here, and for the pointer I thank the excellent Kevin Lewis.  Kevin also directs our attention to this paper: “…these results provide evidence for a relationship between feelings of disgust and the endorsement of equality-promoting political attitudes.”

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