| Three independent essays comprise this dissertation. The first, "The Theoretical Foundations of Strategic Nuclear Deterrence," attempts to make explicit important assumptions and essential elements of the logic of deterrence theory that have too often been left implicit. The essay identifies two versions of strategic nuclear deterrence theory and formalizes the differences between them by relating these differences to the game-theoretic concepts of imperfect and incomplete information and sequentially rational strategies. The most important distinction between these two versions is the assumption of the existence or nonexistence of mutually invulnerable strategic forces. If these forces are assumed to exist, then deterrence rests on a spectrum of risk, i.e., a set of limited options each of which, if exercised, generates a different risk of an explosive escalation to an unrestricted nuclear attack. If these forces are assumed not to exist, then deterrence rests on a spectrum of violence, i.e., a set of limited options each of which, if exercised, inflicts a different amount of damage on an adversary.; The second essay, "International Politics and the Pattern of International Trade," is a simplistic counterexample of the usual clain that trade improves states' welfare. It begins with a very simple economic model of trade and adds to it an equally simple notion from international politics, the security dilemma. This creates a "market externality" that exemplifies an international system in which the outcome if there is free trade is Pareto inferior to the situation in which no state trades.; The third essay, "Uncertainty and the Interest Inelasticity of Investment," suggests that, in an economy with an incomplete set of markets, firms may become increasingly insensitive to market signals--prices--as the level of general uncertainty increases. Thus elasticities, which are usually taken as behavioral parameters, may be conflated with agents' perceptions of the structure of uncertainty. |
