至少自1750年孟德斯鸠男爵宣称“和平是贸易的自然结果”以来，许多经济学家和政治学家都支持国与国之间的贸易能带来和平的观点。明智地利用资源生产一种商品，而不是低效地利用资源生产另一种商品，这是比较优势的基础。基于比较优势的专业化会带来贸易收益。如果政治冲突导致贸易减少，那么至少有一部分冲突成本可以用一个国家从贸易中损失的收益来衡量。两个国家从贸易中获得的利益越大，双边(二元)冲突的代价就越大。这一概念形成了孟德斯鸠男爵关于二元争端的主张的基础。本文开发了一个分析框架，表明两个贸易伙伴(两对)之间贸易的更高收益降低了它们之间的冲突水平。它描述了检验这一假设所必需的数据，并概述了在由此产生的贸易冲突文献中发生的当前发展和扩展。使用各种政治互动数据的横向证据证实，贸易国家之间的合作更多，争斗更少。贸易增长一倍，好战性降低20%。 This result is robust under various specifications, and it is upheld when adjusting for causality using cross-section and time-series techniques. Further, the impact of trade is strengthened when bilateral import demand elasticities are incorporated to better measure gains from trade. Because democratic dyads trade more than non-democratic dyads, democracies cooperate with each other relatively more, thereby explaining the "democratic peace" that democracies rarely fight each other. The paper then goes on to examine further extensions of the trade-conflict model regarding specific commodity trade, foreign direct investment, tariffs, foreign aid, country contiguity, and multilateral interactions.