They have confirmed that you can crash the economy in a village or city by destroying their saw mils and other stuff that helps the city/Village gain income.
I can't remember which interview, but one of them Todd said that if you kill the towns arrowmaker, then finding arrows in that area will be a lot more difficult. So hopefully something as simple as offing an arrowmaker or a hunter will screw with the economy in interesting ways. I may just play a total [censored] character just to see how I can mess with the world.