Elisa Cavatorta

FROM CONSCRIPTION TO VOLUNTEERS: BUDGET SHARES IN NATO DEFENCE SPENDING

A growing number of NATO countries suspended compulsory military service during the past decade or are now phasing it out, moving to an All Volunteer Force (AVF). An AVF can free resources available for investment in up‐to‐date equipments, thus improving operational capabilities. Our paper investigates shifts in NATO military expenditure shares on personnel, equipment, infrastructure and other costs over the period 1970–2008 and explores the impact of the transition to AVFs on these shares of the defence budget. Results suggest that while the end of conscription did not reduce the share of spending on personnel, NATO forces are increasingly less reliant on soldiers and more on capital.

3rd Annual Conference of the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH), Developing methods in agriculture and health research, London, 13-14 June 2013

Agriculture and health interact in complex ways via food systems and nutrition, creating positive and negative synergies, which differ according to economic, political and environmental contexts, but particularly affecting the lives of vulnerable populations in low-income countries. Research in these subjects has historically proceeded in relative isolation, with different disciplines applying distinct methods to generate knowledge and inform sector-based policy and practice. This segregated working is not beneficial if research is to inform the design and implementation of programs and policies that aim to fully and sustainably address the nexus of agriculture and health. Encouragingly, policy and programmatic initiatives, as well as research endeavours, have been increasingly attentive to the linkage of agriculture and health as a method for improving nutritional status and health (Masset et al. 2012). More and better multi-sectoral action will be necessary, however, to reduce the harms and enhance the benefits of the agriculture-health relationship, and research increasingly needs to engage with this complex picture if findings are to remain relevant to policy and practice. In response to this interdisciplinary challenge, the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH) was established in 2010 with a grant from the Leverhulme Trust to develop “unifying approaches and methodologies for understanding the relationship between agricultural production and population health, and the factors which drive them both”an agri-health research agenda (www.lcirah.ac.uk). Since its inception, LCIRAH has hosted three international conferences endeavouring to bring together experts from different sectors to share perspectives and explore integrated inter-disciplinary approaches to global agri-health challenges. In 2011, the first conference, organised with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), had a strong focus on agri-health metrics, with scholars presenting work on ways in which metrics and methods can cross disciplines to fill knowledge gaps. The conference found a potentially huge benefit in promoting the understanding and utilization of different methods across disciplines to move the agri-health research agenda forward. The second conference, in 2012, J. Harris :M. Bruce : E. Cavatorta : L. Cornelsen :B. Hasler : R. Green : E. H.Morgan : S. Stevano :H. L.Walls :K. Cunningham Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH), London, UK

Factor models in panels with cross-sectional dependence: an application to the extended SIPRI military expenditure data

Strategic interactions between countries, such as arms races, alliances and wider economic and political shocks, can induce strong cross-sectional dependence in panel data models of military expenditure. If the assumption of cross-sectional independence fails, standard panel estimators such as fixed or random effects can lead to misleading inference. This paper shows how to improve estimation of dynamic, heterogenous, panel models of the demand for military expenditure allowing for cross-sectional dependence in errors using two approaches: Principal Components and Common Correlated Effect estimators. Our results show that it is crucial to allow for cross-sectional dependence, that the bulk of the effect is regional and there are large gains in fit by allowing for both dynamics and between country heterogeneity in models of the demand for military expenditures.

Unobserved common factors in military expenditure interactions across MENA countries

In this paper we explore the patterns of interactions between military expenditure shares in the MENA region over the period 1979–2007. We explore whether there are latent common factors that impact on the military expenditures of 15 countries in the MENA region and whether these factors can be interpreted. Unobserved common factors induce cross‐sectional dependence and may lead to traditional panel‐time series estimators being inconsistent. To identify these latent factors we apply principal component analysis. We evaluate the interpretation of the estimated factors using the multiple‐indicator multiple‐cause model. We find that there is a substantial evidence of cross‐sectional dependence in the MENA region, induced mainly by two unobserved factors, but these factors are difficult to interpret.

Measuring Ambiguity Preferences: A New Ambiguity Preference Module

Ambiguity preferences are important to explain human decision-making in many areas in economics and finance. To measure individual ambiguity preferences, the experimental economics literature advocates using incentivized laboratory experiments. Yet, laboratory experiments are costly, time-consuming and require substantial administrative effort. This study develops an experimentally validated ambiguity preference survey module that can reliably measure ambiguity preferences when carrying out laboratory experiments is impractical. This toolkit may have wide applications, including end-of-session lab questionnaires, large scale surveys and financial client assessments.