John Paul Dunne

MODELS OF MILITARY EXPENDITURE AND GROWTH: A CRITICAL REVIEW

This paper reviews some of the theoretical and econometric issues involved in estimating growth models that include military spending. While the mainstream growth literature has not found military expenditure to be a significant determinant of growth, much of the defence economics literature has found significant effects. The paper argues that this is largely the product of the particular specification, the Feder–Ram model, that has been used in the defence economics literature but not in the mainstream literature. The paper critically evaluates this model, detailing its problems and limitations and suggests that it should be avoided. It also critically evaluates two alternative theoretical approaches, the Augmented Solow and the Barro models, suggesting that they provide a more promising avenue for future research. It concludes with some general comments about modelling the links between military expenditure and growth.

The demand for military spending in developing countries: A dynamic panel analysis

Estimating demand functions for developing countries before and after the end of the Cold War, Dunne and Perlo-Freeman (2003) found little evidence of any change in the underlying relationship. One concern with their analysis was that the use of cross-section averages might have obscured important time series effects. This paper deals with this issue by analysing their data using static and dynamic panel data methods. This produces evidence of a change in relationship and suggests that the focus in the literature on cross-section analyses has indeed limited our understanding of important dynamic processes at work within countries.

The Demand for Military Expenditure in Developing Countries: Hostility versus Capability

This paper considers the interpretation of the empirical results of the developing literature on the demand for military spending that specifies a general model with arms race and spill‐over effects and estimates it on cross‐section and panel data. It questions whether it is meaningful to talk of an ‘arms race’ in panel data or cross‐section data, and suggests that it may be more appropriate to talk about the relevant variables – aggregate military spending of the ‘Security Web’ (i.e. all neighbours and other security‐influencing powers) and the aggregate military spending of ‘Potential Enemies’ – as acting as proxies for threat perceptions, which will reflect both hostility and capability.

CORRUPTION, MILITARY SPENDING AND GROWTH

This paper considers the effect of corruption and military spending on economic growth, analysing both the direct impact of public spending and the effect of allocating resources between categories of public spending within the framework of an endogenous growth model. The model exhibits non-linearities as a result of the links between the components of public spending, corruption and economic growth. The main findings of the empirical analysis confirm the expectation that corruption and military burden lower the growth rate of gross domestic product per capita. They also suggest that when the effect of the complementarity between military spending and corruption is omitted, as in most studies, the impact of military burden on economic performance is underestimated.

Defence Spending and Economic Growth in the EU15

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.

Military Spending, Growth, Development And Conflict

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.

Military expenditure, economic growth and structural instability: a case study of South Africa

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.

Is there an Arms Race between Greece and Turkey

Richardsons action-reaction model of an arms race has prompted a considerable body of research that has attempted to empirically estimate such models. In general these attempts have been unsuccessful. This paper provides an extensive reconsideration of the estimation issues and using some recent developments in time-series econometrics, provides a comprehensive analysis of data for Greece and Turkey. It finds evidence of some form of cointegration between the military expenditures in both countries, but not of Richardson arms race type.

Military Expenditure, Endogeneity and Economic Growth

Abstract 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.

On the Cost of Violence and the Benefit of Peace

Among economists, there seems to exist an unfortunate lack of understanding of the complexities of war and violence and the effects on economy and society. The cost of the 2008/9 world economic and financial crisis, for example, amounted to a world GDP decline of much less than one percent in 2009—far smaller than the cost that violence imposes. This lack of understanding has created problems in the design of preconflict-, conflict-, and postconflict policies, leaving a sometimes unrecognized legacy of violence and loss. This essay deals with some of the economic issues involved.