Individual and national wealth accumulation is here modelled as a recurrently played game between randomly matched pairs of individuals from a large population. The simple game here studied represents exogenously and spontaneously arising productive opportunities, and the drawn individuals may seek cooperation or conflict over each opportunity. How does national wealth and the evolutionarily stable cooperation rate depend on natural resources and institutions? We show that the steady-state level of national wealth is not monotonically increasing with natural resources. We also study the evolution of the full wealth distribution. When the population is large, the distribution of individual wealth converges over time to a skewed distribution. We also analyze the effect of institutions and the possibility that wealthier individuals are more likely to win conflicts, including effects on national wealth and inequality.
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