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We join the debate on trade interdependence and conflict with a reexamination of Barbieri's (1996) intriguing empirical results showing that under certain circumstances, trade interdependence causes conflict. We argue that these findings resulted from a specification that was missing a variable. We return to Barbieri's models and introduce two independent power measures for countries within each dyad. When a correctly specified trade-conflict regression model incorporating the new power variables is performed, the constraining effect of interdependence becomes evident, and the results obtained are the reverse of Barbieri's.

We join the debate on trade interdependence and conflict with a reexamination of Barbieri's (1996) intriguing empirical results showing that under certain circumstances, trade interdependence causes conflict. We argue that these findings resulted from a specification that was missing a variable. We return to Barbieri's models and introduce two independent power measures for countries within each dyad. When a correctly specified trade-conflict regression model incorporating the new power variables is performed, the constraining effect of interdependence becomes evident, and the results obtained are the reverse of Barbieri's. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2007.]