Producers and Predators

In: Pacific economic review, Volume 3, Issue 3, p. 169-187

Abstract

This paper explores a series of general‐equilibrium models in which people can choose to be either producers or predators, and in which producers can allocate their resources either to production or to guarding their production against predators. The analysis shows how the ratio of predators to producers and the social cost of predation depend on the technology of predation, on the interpersonal distribution of productive resources, and in a fundamental way on whether the decision to allocate resources to guarding against predators is made individually or collectively.