Printing conflict: inflationary monetary policy and the likelihood of war

The role of domestic economic activity as a motivator toward state conflict has long assumed a secondary position to the more tangible instruments of state power. Domestic manipulations of the money supply have rarely been discussed in conjunction with interstate behavior. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between inflation and aggression. First, this paper will lay the theoretical framework connecting changes in the money supply to a states propensity to initiate hostility. Secondly will follow a discussion of the mechanisms by which a state engages in this behavior. Finally, data collected from a thirty year period in the twentieth century will be tested to determine the explanatory power of inflation on the likelihood of a state to initiate conflict.