Economics of hatred

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    Abstract

    In early and important pieces of work, Edward Glaeser and his co-authors established that hatred responds to the incentives of both suppliers and consumers of hatred. The focus of the above strand of work is a political market in which self-seeking politicians spread hatred amongst voters for electoral motives wherefrom the supply of and demand for hatred are derived. In contrast, we model hatred between rival groups who create hatred against each other for purely economic motives such that hatred inflicts a cost upon all. In the proposed model, we are able to characterize two equilibria: first, there is a stable hatred-free equilibrium only under a very special condition. Secondly, there is also an unstable and high-hatred-equilibrium. The paper examines the implications of the multiplicity of equilibria, their existence and stability properties wherefrom we explain the economic foundation of hatred and its epidemic-like properties.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1-8
    Number of pages8
    JournalInternational Journal of Development and Conflict
    Volume2
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2012

    Keywords

    • hate
    • economics
    • politics
    • politicians

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