Search

The causal relationship between economic growth and defence spending has attracted considerable attention and has been the subject of many empirical studies. Hoping to contribute to the existing pool of literature, this paper examines the relationship between military expenditure and growth in the case of Cyprus, a small island economy, for the period 1964-99. The findings reported suggest the presence of bi-directional instantaneous causality between defence spending and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The defense-growth nexus is investigated empirically using time series data for the US and allowing the effect of defense spending on growth to be non-linear. Using recently developed econometric methods involving threshold regressions, evidence of a level-dependent effect of military expenditure on GDP growth is found: the positive externality effect of defense spending prevails for relatively lower levels of defense spending (with respect to the history of defense spending in the US) and reverts its influence for higher levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of national security threats on a nation's economic growth and fiscal policy based on a case study of the Korean peninsula. I construct four measures of provocations using a newly-assembled list of North Korean provocative events going back to 1960. The results show that the overall impact of North Korean provocations on South Korea's short-run economic growth is negligible. Since inter-Korean relations have gone through four phases, this paper also estimates the impact of provocations over each subperiod. Provocations had a significant impact on South Korea's economic growth during 1960-1970 and 1992-1997 when inter-Korean tensions were high, but the effects took on different signs. While provocations decreased South Korea's economic growth during 1992-1997, it had a positive impact on South Korea's macroeconomy before 1970. This paper provides evidence that the effect of national security threats may vary with the responses from the government and political factors such as the relation between the targeted country and the country that inflicts the threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the circumstances where economic growth increases the likelihood of interstate war. Optimism created by high and sustained economic expansion permeates a state, increasing elite and mass optimism for the use of deadly force. Without relief, such unbridled sanguinity can lead states to war. However, other forces reduce the probability of war. Regional democracy, bilateral trade, and trade openness slow down the process where states go to war. This paper hypothesizes that key factors raise the temperature of disputes, increasing the likelihood of a political dispute combusting to war, while other attributes inhibit the process to war. Economic growth catalyzes such reactions, while regional and joint democracy impede the probability that a war sparks. This paper produces monadic and dyadic results demonstrating that economic growth increases the likelihood of war, while other factors such as interstate trade openness, bilateral trade, dyadic democracy, and regional democracy slow down the process of war, making war less likely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates the economic effects of nuclear weapons development efforts in Pakistan using synthetic control group methods. Pakistan started its nuclear weapons program in 1972 and conducted its first test in 1998. This paper focuses on the growth impacts during the 1973 to 1997 period, before Pakistan established itself as a nuclear power. I create a synthetic control group for Pakistan using Per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the 1950 to 1972. The impact of the nuclear weapons development program is measured as a treatment dummy for the years 1973–1997 in a Difference-in-Difference model. I find that Pakistan's per capita GDP would have been an average of about $718 per year higher had the country not undertaken the effort to produce a nuclear weapon. This equates to per capita GDP being 27.8% lower on average over the 25-year weapons-development period. Results are robust to several alternative specifications, including country exclusion, sparse synthetic controls, non-outcome characteristics as predictors of GDP, and in-space placebo experiments of differing specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although possible asymmetries for univariate and multivariate dynamics have been the focus of interest in many areas of economic explorations, it seems that most of the research on military expenditure - economic growth nexus has tended to assume linear relationships. This paper aims to examine possible nonlinearities in military expenditure-economic growth nexus employing data for a sample of 103 countries covering the 1988-2019 period. For this purpose, Panel Smooth Transition Regression, PSTR, models are estimated not only for all countries' sample but also for low income, middle income, and high-income countries' subsamples to reveal possible distinct asymmetric relationships for country groups with different income levels. Empirical results for the whole sample, low income and middle income groups indicate that military expenditure not only governs the regime change, but also low and high levels of military expenditure have distinctive and rising negative effects on economic growth with dissimilar threshold effects. Moreover, empirical findings also indicate that net arms exports govern regime change for high income countries, and as net arms exports rise, the negative impacts of military expenditure on economic growth become deeper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the influence of conflict on the economies of neighbouring countries is discussed. The results from previous papers show a strong negative effect for an entire area around a country suffering from conflict, but this paper reaches a different conclusion, by using more recent data and adjusting the methodology previously employed. Additionally, a new type of contiguity matrix is constructed and used in the actual analysis. The final analysis consists of a large number of regressions and concludes that conflict actually has two opposing effects. First, like conflict countries themselves, directly contiguous countries actually suffer from the negative effects of proximate conflict. Secondly, however, there is also a positive spillover of conflict, which affects non-contiguous countries and this effect is larger for countries that are closer to the conflict country. The results from the paper predominantly hold for the most violent kind of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a nation that has persisted through turbulent times. The country's leaders have long attempted to balance the allocation of resources between a strong military and a developing economy in their quest for stability, peace and prosperity. This paper examines and sheds further light on the relationship between Jordan's military expenditure and its economic growth during the period 1970–2015. Using the Gregory -Hansen cointegration technique allowing for structural breaks, and the ARDL methodology this paper tests the short – and long–run equilibrium relationship between military expenditure and economic growth in Jordan. Furthermore, with the error correction model (ECM) and the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests, we examine the stability of the above relationship. The results reveal positive short – and long–run relationships between military expenditure and economic growth in Jordan, during the period under study. This finding has important policy implications for the Jordanian state, as it justifies the transfer of resources to the military, showing that it has not had a negative impact on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have investigated the relationship between political instability and economic growth separately from the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth. Besides, they did not cover the period after 2011 (i.e. the Arab Spring and its consequences). Therefore, this paper attempts to empirically analyze the long-run and short-run impacts of both political instability and military expenditure on economic growth in Egypt. We estimate the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach using data on the Egyptian economy over the period 1982–2018. For the robustness of our results, we use the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) estimator. Results of the ARDL approach indicate a significant negative relationship between political instability and economic growth in both the long-run and short-run. Contrarily, military expenditure has an insignificant impact on economic growth, especially in the long-run. These results are confirmed by the FMOLS estimator. Moreover, the estimated coefficient on the one-period lagged error correction term (ECTt-1) indicates that deviations from the long-run equilibrium relationship are corrected within a year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until today, the great majority of the relevant literature is dominated by growth models that assume common structural parameters and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) evolution across countries. In the context of the modified Solow convergence equation, the role of the present paper is to highlight the importance of incorporating cross–country differences, both in observables and unobservables, in the investigation of the defense–growth nexus. Special attention is paid to the heterogeneity in TFP growth and the cross–country dependence induced by global shocks. Furthermore, it analyzes the econometric issues involved by providing a brief review of various heterogeneous dynamic panel estimators. The presented estimators are then applied to two alternative panel specifications of the Solow model. Overall, the empirical application revealed that the Dynamic Common Correlated Effects (DCCE) estimator seems to be the most reliable option among the various dynamic panel estimators employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review some critical comments upon our earlier paper in this journal and respond to these. We also critically evaluate a proposed alternative methodology giving reasons why our own provides a more robust approach for examining the nexus between military spending and economic growth in South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of military expenditure on economic growth on a large balanced panel, using an exogenous growth model and dynamic panel data methods for 106 countries over the period 1988–2010. A major focus of the paper is to consider the possibility group heterogeneity and non-linearity. Having estimated the model for all of the countries in the panel and finding that military burden has a negative effect on growth in the short and long run, the panel is broken down into various groupings based upon a range of potentially relevant factors, and the robustness of the results is evaluated. The factors considered are different levels of income, conflict experience, natural resources abundance, openness and aid. The estimates for the different groups are remarkably consistent with those for the whole panel, providing strong support for the argument that military spending has adverse effects on growth. There are, however, some intriguing results that suggest that for certain types of countries military spending has no significant effect on growth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The economic growth effects of military expenditure have been the subject of a large literature in defence economics. Theories on the economic impacts of military expenditure greatly differ and include arguments that they either enhance economic growth or crowd out productive investments. Empirical literature on defence expenditure and economic growth nexus generally employs linear specifications to investigate the impact of defence expenditures on economic growth. Although it is now well established that many economic variables may have a non-linear data-generating mechanism, it seems that this reality has long been neglected in empirical work on defence–growth nexus. This paper attempts to fill this gap by employing non-linear panel data models to examine the effects of military expenditures on economic growth for Middle Eastern countries and Turkey, for the time period 1988–2012. Results show that the effect of military expenditure on economic growth is nonlinear such that the state of the economy actually determines the effect of the former on the latter. This is important not only in showing asymmetric relationship between these variables but also in revealing the reasons of mixed results of earlier literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use new data on military expenditure (milex) compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to investigate the relationship between military spending and economic growth. We focus on selected countries in Indo-Pacific Asia – an economically diverse but increasingly prosperous region with pockets of strategic competition and growing milex. We confirm the robustness of SIPRI’s milex data by corroborating it with defence budget data published by Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation (ADIO). We find no conclusive evidence of an arms race in the region. It is the growing economic prosperity that accounts for most of the growth in Indo-Pacific Asia’s milex. But we also find wide variations in the economic burden imposed by milex at the national level and that milex’ high level of aggregation masks important changes in national military capabilities. We argue that such capabilities can increase despite a constant or even declining milex burden and, hence, prejudice the peaceful resolution of international conflicts and, thus, undermine the fragile regional stability. We propose limited disaggregation of milex to highlight national spending on military force structure and preparedness so as to facilitate better understanding of military capability formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper in this journal, Wijewerra and Webb study the connection between military spending and gross domestic product (GDP) in a group of five South Asian countries, finding a small but statistically significant positive relationship between military spending and GDP. This paper reviews their approach and proposes an alternative which tries to deal with the problems of omitted variables and variable construction. It finds, in contrast, that a higher share of military spending in GDP is associated with lower growth of GDP per capita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses linear and non-linear Granger causality methods to determine the causal relationship between defense spending and economic growth in Turkey for the period 1949-2004. The innovative feature of this paper is that it provides evidence regarding the nonlinear causal dependence between military spending and economic growth in Turkey. The empirical results contribute to the empirical literature by indicating support for both linear and non-linear causality between military expenditures and economic development and they may prove useful in theoretical and empirical research by regulators and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great part of the defense literature is focused on the interaction between military spending and economic activity. To investigate this interrelationship, researchers have applied a wide variety of methodologies with totally different assumptions and statistical properties. Until today, however, no detailed examination of the sensitivity of empirical results to the various statistical methods has been provided in the literature. The present paper attempts to fill this gap by providing, firstly, a review of the majority of the time series methodologies used in the defense–growth literature and, secondly, an econometric application using data of the U.S. economy over the period 1961–2015 in order to establish empirically the association between econometric procedures and empirical results. The empirical findings of the conducted analysis suggest that statistical methods can indeed become a significant source of variation in the investigation of the defense–growth nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While not always a concern for the general economic growth literature, the debate over the effects of military spending on growth continues to develop, with no consensus, but a deepening understanding of the limitations of previous work. One important issue that has not been adequately dealt with is the endogeneity of military spending in the growth equation, mainly because of the difficulty of finding any variables that would make adequate instruments. This paper considers this issue, using an endogenous growth model estimated on a large sample of 109 non-high-income countries for the period 1998–2012. The empirical analysis is framed within an instrumental variable setting that exploits the increase in military spending that occurs when unrest in a country escalates to turmoil. The estimation results show that endogeneity arising from reverse causality is a crucial issue, with the instrumental variable estimates providing a larger significant negative effect of military spending on growth than OLS would. This result is found to be robust to different sources of heterogeneity and different time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of government counter-terrorism expenditure and efforts, the incidence of terrorism in Nigeria appears to be rising. This paper examines the growth and fiscal consequences of terrorism in Nigeria by estimating the terrorism–macroeconomy relation using different measures of terror incidence. The results show that terrorism has an economically and statistically significant negative impact on growth; although this impact is considerably small and short-lived, manifesting only after a lag of about three years. Specifically, the cost of terrorism to Nigeria, in terms of lost GDP per annum, is estimated at 0.82%. Moreover, there is evidence that terrorism leads to the reallocation of economic activity away from private investment spending to government spending; that is, terrorism crowds out investment at a higher rate than its potential to crowd in government spending. Lastly, terrorism alters the composition of government expenditure – with the defence component of government expenditure rising vis-a-vis other expenditure items. The results are robust to allowing for dynamic interactions between terrorism and macroeconomic aggregates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a growth model for a country under a Hobbesian environment with international conflicts where national defense is the only way to prevent external predation. Different defense strategies result in different growth paths. The long-run growth path is determined by the equilibrium of a dynamic game with three players: the external predator, the government, and the family. The equilibrium growth path can have different phases: submissive equilibrium, tolerant equilibrium, and complete protection equilibrium. Sustainable growth will endogenously induce an adjustment of the defense strategies. As the economy keeps growing, complete protection will eventually be preferred. The optimal growth path prefers to compress the length of the transitional period between incomplete protection and complete protection. Some interesting features of the transitional dynamics are exhibited by a control model with discontinuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural resources have been blamed for inducing slow growth and sparking civil conflicts and violence. This paper first develops a model to account for the hazard of armed civil conflicts as a manifestation of the natural resource curse, which is mediated by the quality of both economic and political institutions. We then use recently published data on institutional quality and natural resource rents to measure the potential impact of the resource curse on violent civil conflicts using a panel of data for over 100 countries in the period 1970–2010. Our model explicitly accounts for the role of good economic and political institutions in deterring the recourse to violence as well as the extent to which they might weaken the resource rents effect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper contributes to the growing literature on the milex-growth nexus, by providing a case study of South Africa and considering the possibility of structural breaks by applying newly developed econometric methods. Using full sample bootstrap Granger non-causality tests, no Granger causal link is found between military expenditure and GDP for 1951–2010, but parameter instability tests show the estimated VARs to be unstable. Using a bootstrap rolling window estimation procedure, however, finds evidence of bidirectional Granger causality in various subsamples. This implies standard Granger non-causality tests, which neither account for structural breaks nor time variation may be invalid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 30 years, there has been an impressive amount of empirical work on the defence–growth nexus, using different methodologies, models and econometric techniques and focusing on individual case studies, cross-country studies or panel data studies. Despite the number and the variety of studies, the evidence on the defence–growth relationship is still far from conclusive. Rather surprisingly, very limited work has been published in the relevant literature for the European Union despite the continuous discussions for a Common European Defence Policy that would require an assessment of the economic effects of defence in this region. To fill in the gap in the literature, this paper employs an augmented Solow–Swan model and estimates it both with panel and time series methods to provide empirical evidence on the economic effects of defence spending in the EU15 over the period 1961–2007. Overall, evidence derived from both panel and time series methods is consistent and suggests that military burden does not promote economic growth in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the paper is to decipher the military expenditure-economic growth relationship, taking the level of economic development (income) into consideration. Our findings suggest the following: (i) military expenditure has a significantly negative relationship to economic growth for the 23 countries with initial incomes (threshold variable) less than or equal to $475.93; (ii) when the threat level is heightened, economic growth (23 countries) is expected to decrease. However, military expenditure in the presence of sufficiently large threats increases growth; (iii) for the remaining 69 countries whose initial incomes (real GDP per capita in 1992 price) exceed $475.93, no significant relationship exists whether the threat variable is taken into consideration or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the influence of military spending on European economic growth. The estimated regressions are based on Barro's (1991) growth model, which controls for economic institutional variation across countries. The cross-section and panel data analyses cover the period 1960-2000. The empirical findings indicate that military spending has an overall net negative influence on economic growth. Furthermore, the magnitude of this negative impact tends to increase over time, as cross-section regression results indicate. Given the development of a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP), these findings suggest that enhanced defence spending may hinder European economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a large literature on the relationship between economic growth and defense spending, but its findings are often contradictory and inconclusive. These results may be partly due to non-linear growth effects of military expenditure and incorrect model specifications. The literature also appears lacking an empirical analysis of interaction between military spending and the arms trade and the impact of these two on growth. This paper investigates this non-linear interaction in the context of the Solow and Barro growth models recommended by Dunne et al.1 (2005). Using fixed effects, random effects, and Arellano-Bond GMM estimators, I examine the growth effects of military expenditure, arms trade, and their interaction in a balanced panel of 28 countries during 1965-2000. The augmented Solow growth model specified in Dunne et al. (2005) yields more robust estimates than the reformulated Barro model. I find that higher military spending and net arms exports separately lead to lower economic growth, but higher military spending is less detrimental to growth when a country is a net arms exporter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs both linear and non-linear models to investigate the relationship between national defense spending and economic growth for Taiwan and China. Using data from 1953-2000 on defense spending, GDP, import, export and capital, we find that China's defense spending leads that of Taiwan. There exists the phenomenon of an arms race between both countries when official Chinese data are used. On the one hand, feedback relations prevail between economic growth and defense spending growth in Taiwan. On the other hand, China's national defense is found to lead economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether defense expenditures contributed to economic growth in China for the 1952–2012 period. We examine the contribution of defense to economic growth using recently published official data on economic activity, defense, and government expenditures. We employ the Feder-Ram and augmented Solow models of economic growth to explore the defense-growth relationship. The Feder-Ram model appears to poorly explain economic growth in China. The augmented Solow model suggests, however, that a 1% increase in defense expenditures raises the economic growth rate by approximately 0.15–0.19%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We study the effect of a corruption reflection index on internal conflict in Iran using a novel measure of corruption based on newspaper coverage. We use the Vector Autoregression (VAR) model and its applied tools of impulse response and variance decomposition analyses to track the response of protests to shocks in corruption levels. Using annual data from 1962 to 2019, we find a positive and significant response of protests to a positive shock in the news-based corruption reflection index. We also show that economic growth and military spending are the main channels where higher corruption may lead to higher internal protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the long-run causal relationship between military expenditure and economic growth in China over the period 1952–2010. An empirical econometric analysis based on a Barro-style growth model is conducted. By employing the Bartlett corrected trace test, which provides better approximations of the finite sample distribution to determine the rank of cointegration, the results support the existence of a single long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the cumulated shocks of military expenditure primarily originate from different components of shocks that relate to economic development rather than the other way round. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries with different democratic levels tend to show various degrees of emphasis on military expenditure and a consensus can hardly be reached on the economic effect of democracy and military expenditure. By applying a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) approach, this article examines the potential dynamic and endogenous relationships among democracy, military expenditure and economic growth of 126 countries from 1990 to 2020. Furthermore, the k-means clustering algorithm is employed to account for the heterogeneous interaction between democracy and military expenditure in different countries. The empirical results reveal that the strong positive impact of democracy and the negative effect of military spending on economic growth exists in the full sample and the cluster of countries with low democratic levels and a high military burden. For democratic countries with low military expenditure, there is a more significant and negative impact both of military expenditure on democracy and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a contribution to the debate on the economic effects of military spending using a large cross-country panel data-set for 1988–2006. As well as providing a relatively up to date analysis, sub-groups are created that allow the analysis to focus on groups of countries at different income levels and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), an area which has seen a large number of damaging conflicts. Estimating the empirical growth model gives results that show variation across the sub-groups, with the general picture of significant negative short-run effect and insignificant long-run effect of military burden on per capita GDP growth, not consistent across the different income groups. In addition, breaking down the SSA group into those involved in conflict and those that are not, provides some further intriguing findings that suggest the value of further work on the impact of conflict on growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large literature has used tests for Granger (1969) non-causality, GNC, to examine the interaction of military spending with the economy. Such tests answer a specific although quite limited question: can one reject the null hypothesis that one variable does not help predict another? If one can reject, there is said to be Granger causality, GC. Although the limitations of GNC tests are well known, they are often not emphasised in the applied literature and so may be forgotten. This paper considers the econometric and methodological issues involved and illustrates them with data for the US and other countries. There are three main issues. First, the tests may not be informative about the substantive issue, the interaction of military expenditure and the economy, since Granger causality does not correspond to the usual notion of economic causality. To determine the relationship of the two notions of causality requires an identified structural model. Second, the tests are very sensitive to specification. GNC testing is usually done in the context of a vector autoregression, VAR, and the test results are sensitive to the variables and deterministic terms included in the VAR, lag length, sample or observation window used, treatment of integration and cointegration and level of significance. Statistical criteria may not be very informative about these choices. Third, since the parameters are not structural, the test results may not be stable over different time periods or different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we employ a VAR analysis to examine the nexus between military spending and economic growth in Sri Lanka which, due to the civil war there, has witnessed a significant increase in military spending over the last three decades while also recording healthy economic growth. The study finds that, compared with non-military spending, military spending exerts only a minimal positive impact on real GDP. Over a 10-year period, a 1% increase in non-military spending increases GDP by 1.6%. In contrast, military spending only increases GDP by 0.05%, suggesting that the economic benefits for Sri Lanka from a sustained peace may be considerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth by including the impact of the share of military and civilian components of government expenditure in an economic growth model with endogenous technology. In this framework, we empirically consider the hypothesis of a non-linear effect of military expenditure on economic growth. Differences between the costs and benefits of the defence sector has traditionally explained the non-linear relationship suggesting that shocks to insecurity may also be a source of non-linearity as they determine a re-allocative effect within government expenditure. While parametric partial correlations are in line with empirical findings, the robustness of estimations is tested by using a non-parametric approach. The negative relationship between military expenditure and growth in countries with high levels of military burden predicted by theory becomes significant only after including a proxy for re-allocative effects in the growth equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To gain better insight into the debate concerning the relationship between defence expenditure and economic growth, this paper empirically applies Hansen's (1996) threshold regression model to examine the threshold effect between the two variables. Allowing defence expenditure to have a non-linear effect sheds considerable new light on the characteristics of the defence-growth link. The single subject, Taiwan, is tested using both a neoclassical one-sector aggregate production function model and Feder's (1982) two-sector production function model over the 1960 to 2002 period. The empirical analysis indicates that the threshold effect strongly exists in 1973 and 1982 coinciding with the occurrence of two energy crises, and the non-linear relationship is solidly supported with both models. While positive externalities seem to prevail for moderate levels of defence spending, the positive effect of defence expenditure on economic growth disappears when the level is relatively large. Thus, only when defence expenditure is small, does the Benoit hypothesis hold. It is demonstrated that a threshold regression provides a far superior empirical model than the standard linear model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the literature on political instability and economic growth by specifically investigating the impact of political instability on the economic growth of member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). West Africa is regarded as the riskiest sub-region within the African continent. To achieve this objective, this study employed panel data techniques (fixed effects and generalised method of moments) on a sample of 15 ECOWAS member countries for the period 2005–2012. The findings from the analyses showed that terrorism, poor governance, social unrest, youth unemployment, death rate and natural resource rent have negative relationships with economic growth. The findings and policy implications deduced from this study could not have been any timelier considering the recent escalation of instability in West African countries and their fragile growth prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation re-examines the potential sources of positive externalities for the relationship between military spending and economic growth using recent advances in panel estimation methods and a large data-set on military expenditure. The investigation provides a new analysis on the relationship between conflict, corruption, natural resources and military expenditure and their direct and indirect effects on economic growth. The analysis finds that the impact of military expenditure on growth is generally negative as in the literature, but that it is not significantly detrimental for countries facing higher internal threats and for countries with large natural resource wealth once corruption levels are accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study revisits the causal relationship between military spending and economic growth in 10 Middle East countries via a panel causality analysis that accounts for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity across countries. Our results indicate unidirectional causality from military spending to growth for Turkey; one-way causality from economic growth to military spending for Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria; bidirectional causality for Israel; and no causality in either direction for Jordan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. The empirical evidence does not provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between defense expenditure and economic growth in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a period of more than a century and a half (1852–2019), military expenditure in Portugal reached its highest values in the contexts of the Great War (1914–1918) and the Colonial War (1961–1974). In almost every year between these two conflicts, military expenditure was the most important sector within the structure of the Portuguese State. However, with the end of the Colonial War and Portugal's entry into Democracy, there was a clear shift in this pattern. Since 1975, military expenditure has ceased to be the most important sector of the Portuguese State, and currently plays only a very reduced role, while social spending has today supplanted it as the most significant sector. Through the estimation of a dynamic model, it proved possible to identify some of the positive and negative effects of military spending on the Portuguese economy during the period 1874–2018. These results are a possibility that is supported by the theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the possibility of having a causal link between geopolitical risk (GPR) and defence expenditure (DE) by employing panel bootstrap Granger causality method. The results highlight the causality running from GPR to DE in China, India, and Saudi Arabia. In other words, the GPR in the form of border disputes, wars and terrorism threats can pursuade countries to increase their defence expenditure. The results we obtain for these three countries are also supported by the neoclassical model, which asserts that GPR is a significant contributor to DE. Contrary to above, there are evidences for reverse causality as well where DE is causing GPR in South Korea and Turkey. The most probable reasons for reverse causality could be the various alliances for regional security by the countries and their dependency on the import of military equipment. The results indicate an insignificant relationship between GPR and DE in Brazil, Israel, and Russia; where the DE is mainly determined by the internal political system and its contribution towards employment generation. On the basis of our results, it can be inferred that the convergence of regional interests in the form of a peaceful solution of disputes may guarantee security. Also, the formulation of the policies that are independent and isolated from the influence of external powers, can help in controlling the ever-increasing DE and GPR in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defence expenditures have both costs and benefits to the economy. The costs of defence expenditures are mainly emphasized as opportunity costs. On the other hand, defence spending may have growth‐promoting potential benefits: a rise in defence spending may result in a higher aggregate demand, production and employment. This paper examines empirically the effects of military expenditures on economic growth for Middle Eastern countries and Turkey, for the time‐period 1989–1999. The relationship between military expenditure and economic growth is investigated by using cross‐section and dynamic panel estimation techniques. Empirical analysis indicates that military expenditure enhances economic growth in the Middle Eastern countries and Turkey as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the effects of military expenditure on growth in Peru in the period from 1970 to 1996. By using a Deger-type Simultaneous Equations Model it is possible to break up the net effect into supply- and demand-side influences. The former consist of positive externalities of defence activities on the other sectors of the economy, while the latter can be described as crowding-out of civilian investment. Estimations find the supply-side effects to be insignificantly different from zero, while the crowding-out effect of defence spending is significant and substantial. It is thereby established that defence expenditure has a negative overall effect on economic growth in Peru. Although several caveats - including specification problems of the Deger model, the quality of the data used, a relatively small sample and the presence of autocorrelation in the estimations - must be considered, these results turn out to be quite robust with respect to estimation methods (3SLS, 2SLS, OLS) and slight modifications to the model. They are also consistent with previous empirical findings from other countries and cross sectional studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to empirically test the effects of military expenditure on external debt of 35 arms importing countries by using the annual panel data from the year 1995 to 2016. The panel was divided into two income classes (upper-middle and lower-middle), and the basic sample was also divided into five different regions (Middle-East and North Africa, South and East Asia, Latin America, Europe and Central Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa) to achieve further robustness in the study. The empirical results of pooled mean group estimators suggest that military expenditure generally increases the external debt burden in the studied countries. More specifically, it was noted that military expenditure decreases external debt in Europe and Central Asia. Moreover, it was found that the interaction term of military expenditure and growth rate is positive and significant in all of the sub-samples, except upper-middle class, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin American regions. Thus, it may be concluded that military expenditure often increases external debt burden in countries where the debt management system is weak. Countries with weaker debt management systems need to devise economic policies that curtail their military expenditure, reduce their external debt and improve their economic condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cointegration and causal relationships amongst militarisation, energy consumption, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and economic growth in Myanmar are investigated for the period of 1975–2014. Myanmar was governed by a military regime until 2011 with high levels of military expenditure. This study adopted an extended neoclassical production function framework utilising the autoregressive distributed lag approach to investigate the causal relationships. Estimation showed that a 1% increase in military expenditure led to a 0.63% decrease in GDP, whereas a 1% increase in energy consumption increased GDP by 4% in the long run. The bootstrap-corrected causality test located bidirectional causality between energy consumption and CO2 emissions and unidirectional causality running from economic growth to energy consumption. Policy recommendations promoting Myanmar's economic growth include reducing military spending which would contribute to a reduction in CO2 emissions and encourage efficient energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the causal nexus between defense expenditure and economic growth in China using the bootstrap Granger full-sample causality test and rolling-window estimation. The full-sample result indicates a positive bidirectional causality between economic growth and defense expenditure, suggesting that more defense spending increases economic growth, and vice versa. By adopting a time-varying rolling-window approach to revisit the dynamic causal relationships, this article identifies that the causality changes over time. We find significant positive short-run causality running from economic growth to defense expenditure in most of the time investigated, thus implying that economic growth stimulates defense expenditure. However, large-scale disarmaments break such positive linkage. Conversely, both positive and negative effects of defense expenditure on economic growth are demonstrated, showing that more defense spending has ambiguous effect on economy. Consequently, economic growth mainly drives defense expenditure rather than the other way around. The impact of defense expenditure in China on national economy is affected by multiplier effect and crowding-out effect as well as institutional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the nexus between the defense spending growth rate and inflation to test whether defense spending is inflationary in China, particularly in times of peace. Using wavelet analysis, we find that the linkage between the defense spending growth rate and inflation changes over time and across frequencies. We provide evidence supporting negative leading effects of inflation on the defense spending growth rate in certain periods across various frequencies. The results illustrate that the relationship is stronger at the short- to medium-term horizon of less than eight years than it is in the long term. No positive leading effect of defense spending on inflation is demonstrated, showing that defense spending is not inflationary in China. The results indicate that inflation lowers the defense spending growth rate at short and medium scales, particularly in peace time. This study provides new insights into the nexus between defense spending and inflation and emphasizes that such a correlation has time and frequency features. Meanwhile, given that there is little evidence supporting the idea that defense spending is inflationary, a moderate increase in defense spending will not damage price stability in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using annual data collected from 1988 to 2015, this study provides evidence of a non-linear relationship between military spending, economic growth and other growth determinants for the South African economy. The empirical study is based on estimates of a logistic smooth transition regression (LSTR) model and our empirical results point to an inverted U-shaped relationship between military spending and economic growth for the data. Furthermore, our empirical results suggest that the current levels of military spending, as a component of total government expenditure, are too high in the South African economy and need to be transferred towards more productive non-military expenditure in order to improve the performance of economic growth and other growth determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between defence spending, other components of public spending and economic growth for the 1952–2012 period in China using Granger causality tests and generalised impulse response functions based on vector error correction models. The empirical results reveal two long-run equilibrium relationships among the variables and also show that defence spending inversely and unidirectionally Granger impacts economic growth. Furthermore, empirical findings point to a trade-off relationship between defence spending and public expenditures in China. From a policy maker’s perspective, the findings reported herein imply that a decrease in defence spending may stimulate economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical note re-examines the causal linkages between military expenditures and economic growth for the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and that for the USA during the period 1988-2012. Results of Granger causality tests show that military expenditures influence economic growth in the USA, economic growth influences military expenditures in both Brazil and India, a feedback between military expenditures and economic growth in Russia, and no causal relation exists between military expenditures and economic growth in China and South Africa. The findings of this study can provide important policy implications for the BRICS countries and also for the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]