Austen-Smith (2000) reports a theoretical result that if the cost of entering the workforce is sufficiently low, winner-take-all political systems induce endogenous redistribution levels that are systematically lower than those determined by proportional representation systems (Proposition 6). The proof in Austen-Smith (2000) has a mistake. We explain the mistake and offer an alternative proof. The conclusion of the original paper continues to hold.

Engagement in a destructive war can be understood as the “punishment” for entering into a dispute. Institutions that reduce the chance that disputes lead to war make this punishment less severe. This may incentivize hawkish policies like militarization and potentially offset the benefits of peace brokering. We study a model in which unmediated peace talks are effective at improving the peace chance for given militarization but lead to more militarization and ultimately to a higher incidence of war. Instead, a form of third-party mediation inspired by work of Myerson effectively brokers peace in emerged disputes and also minimizes equilibrium militarization.