Trade Costs, Conflicts, and Defense Spending

This paper develops a quantitative model of trade, military conflicts, and defense spending. Trade liberalization between two countries reduces probability of an armed conflict between them, causing both to cut defense spending. This in turn causes a domino effect on defense spending by other countries. As a result, both countries and the rest of the world are better off. We estimate the model using data on trade, conflicts, and military spending. We find that, after reduction of costs of trade between a pair of hostile countries, the welfare effect of worldwide defense spending cuts is comparable in magnitude to the direct welfare gains from trade

Modeling the Defense-Growth Nexus in a Post-Conflict Country - A Piecewise Linear Approach

The defense-growth nexus is investigated empirically using longitudinal data for Guatemala and allowing the effect of defense spending on growth to be nonlinear. Using recently developed econometric methods involving threshold regressions, evidence of a level-dependent effect of military expenditure on GDP growth is found: a positive and significant externality effect of defense spending prevails for relatively low levels of defense spending and becomes negative, albeit insignificant, for higher levels.Guatemala, defense expenditures, nonlinearity, economic growth, externality effect

Defense Spending by State - Nevada Fiscal Year 2017

This Fact Sheet reprints two pages from the March 2019 DEFENSE SPENDING BY STATE (FISCAL YEAR 2017) publication issued by the United States Department of Defense: Office of Economic Adjustment for the purposes of relaying information related to defense spending in the State of Nevada.1 The original report presents data from fiscal year 2017, the most recent annual data available at the time of publication

Government spending shocks and the multiplier: New evidence from the U.S. based on natural disasters

The literature on estimating macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy requires suitable instruments to identify exogenous and unanticipated spending shocks. So far, the instrument of choice has been military build-ups. This instrument, however, largely limits the analysis to the US as few other countries have been involved in mainly extraterritorial conflicts. Moreover, the expenditure associated with military build-ups affects primarily the defense sector so that the resulting multiplier does not necessarily approximate the effects of changes to general government spending. We propose an alternative instrument: government relief expenditure in the wake of natural disasters which is more similar in its scope to general government spending. We construct a rich data set of natural disasters and the corresponding government responses at the US state level. We apply this methodology both at the state as well as national levels and show that natural disasters serve as a powerful instrument for identifying government spending shocks. Furthermore, we show that the multiplier pertaining to non-defense government spending is higher than the defense-spending multiplier estimated in the literature using military build-ups

Lending to an Insecure Sovereign

This paper analyzes a reputational equilibrium for sovereign debt in a model in which the sovereign borrows to finance spending for defense against threats to its survival in power. In this model, the amount of sovereign debt and defense spending, the resulting survival probability, and the sovereign's implied discount rate for future consumption are determined simultaneously. The optimal amount of debt and defense spending equates the marginal cost of defense spending in reducing the level of consumption to the marginal benefit of defense spending in increasing the probability of surviving to enjoy future consumption. In the reputational equilibrium, however, the amount of debt and the associated discount rate must be small enough that the short-run gains from debt repudiation are not larger than the long-run costs from the loss of a trustworthy reputation. The analysis shows that the interest rate on the sovereign's debt and the discount rate for the sovereign that results from optimal borrowing and defense spending can be small enough that optimal borrowing and defense spending satisfy the condition for a reputational equilibrium. In this case, the sovereign's inability to make an irrevocable commitment not to repudiate its debts does not hinder its ability to finance its defense against threats to its survival. This result is more likely to obtain the smaller is the expected rate of return that lenders require, the larger is the amount of servicing that a potential successor sovereign would rationally provide for debts incurred by the current sovereign, and the closer is the relation between the current sovereign's discount rate and its probability of surviving in power.

AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF AGGREGATE DEFENSE SPENDING ON AGGREGATE OUTPUT: THE CASE OF TURKEY, 1950-2002

This study utilizes the new macroeconomic theory and multivariate cointegration analysis in search of the effects of aggregate defense spending on aggregate output in Turkey. This study provides the empirical evidence that there is a strong positive long-run relationship between aggregate defense spending and aggregate output in Turkey over the estimation period. The findings of this study contradict the previous empirical results on the same topic obtained from the neoclassical production function and traditional regression analysis. JEL Classification: E69; E60; H50.Aggregate defense spending; Aggregate output; Cointegration analysis, Turkey

Defense Spending and economic growth in Turkey: an empirical application of new macroeconomic theory

This study prsents new empirical evidence on the relationship between the level of of economic growth and defense expenditures in the case of Turkey for the period of 1950-2002. On using new macroeconomic and multivariate cointegration procedure, this study demonstrates empirically that there exists apositive relationship between aggregate defense spending and aggregate output in Turkey. In addition, the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests confirm the stability of aggregateb output function. The results obtained from this study are, by and large, in line with the previous studies concerning Turkey.aggregate output, aggregate defense spending, cointegration, stability tests, Turkey

Defense Spending and Economic Growth:A Theoretical Manifestation for Empirical Studies

Defense literature is still in need of a theoretical framework in the neoclassical sense, in regard to empirical research on the relationship between defense spending and economic growth. In this respect, Dunne, Smith and Willenbockel (2005), although not without technical problems, represented a breakthrough in the field. In addition, the whole empirical literature following Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992) is based on the unrealistic assumption that technological progress is identical across countries and constant in time. Recently, Bayraktar-Saglam and Yetkiner (2012) developed a theoretical framework that overcomes the unrealistic assumption of constant and identical rates of technological progress. In this paper, we achieve two things. First, we develop the true growth-defense model, based on Dunne, Smith and Willenbockel (2005). Second, we overcome the general weakness of constant and identical technological progress assumption in empirical growth studies by employing Bayraktar-Saglam and Yetkiner (2012) growth framework. We show that the intensity of defense spending in GDP has both positive and negative effects. In this respect, the theory supports the findings of the empirical literature, which are inconclusive in nature.Military Expenditure, Defense Spending, Convergence, Economic Growth

How does the U.S. government finance fiscal shocks?

We develop a method for identifying and quantifying the fiscal channels that help finance government spending shocks. We define fiscal shocks as surprises in defense spending and show that they are more precisely identified when defense stock data are used in addition to aggregate macroeconomic data. Our results show that in the postwar period, about 9% of the U.S. government’s unantic- ipated spending needs were financed by a reduction in the market value of debt and more than 70% by an increase in primary sur- pluses. Additionally, we find that long-term debt is more effective at absorbing fiscal risk than short-term debt.

Defense spending - economic growth nexus in selected OIC countries: a long-run causality analysis

This paper investigates the long run Granger causality between defense spending and economic growth for 20 selected Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) by employing the Error-Correction Model (ECM) framework using annual data for the period 1960 to 2005. defense spending (milex) is measured using the ratio of defense spending to gross domestic product (GDP); while economic growth (rgdpc) is proxy by the real GDP per capita. The results of our study indicated that one way long run Granger causality was found running from economic growth to defense spending for Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo and Turkey. On the other hand, one way long run Granger causality was found running from defense spending to economic growth was found for Iran, Mauritania and Nigeria. However for the rest of the OIC countries, the results suggested no relationship between defense spending and economic growth