PhD thesis defended at the Eigenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Dr Andreas Wenger.

Dr Martini’s thesis examines the determinants and outcomes of escalation in international trade disputes. It shows that mutual increases in parties’ stakes, rather than power relations and the parties’ costs of conflict, are linked to substantial increases in escalation levels, and the variation in bargaining outcomes declines with increased escalation levels. The thesis employs state-of-art-econometric techniques using newly collected datasets.

Marco Martini is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. He holds a PhD in International Relations from ETH Zurich and an MA in Political Science and Government from Heidelberg University.