Defense Expenditures and Economic Growth in Developing Countries

Armed Forces and Society, Summer, 1983.Refereed Journal ArticleStudies of the effect that defense spending has had on economic growth in less-developed countries have produced rather mixed results. We contend that this is because these studies have failed to take into account the relative financial constraints faced by individual countries. In an extension of the seminal work by Emile Benoit on defense spending and its effect on economic growth, 1 we hypothesize that relatively poor countries tend to cut back high-growth development expenditures in favor of maintaining defense programs, while relatively rich countries are much less likely to abandon development expenditures given a constant level of defense preparedness. Thus, we should expect a negative relationship between defense and growth in the poorer countries, but a positive relationship in the richer countries

Fiscal Policy in Mexico: The FitzGerald Thesis Reexamined

World Development, March 1987.Refereed Journal ArticleInterest continues in the Mexican government's finance and expenditure policy due to the severity and length of fiscal crises. According to FitzGerald, Mexican deficits were financed through increased savings crowding out consumption but not private investment. Using official IMF data this paper attempts to verify the FitzGerald thesis. By and large our results suggest the Mexican economy is best depicted along Keynesian lines and not FitzGerald's Kaleckian interpretation. This conclusion is further substantiated by the prolonged nature of the country's current economic crisis associated with record high central government deficits and subdued levels of private sector investment. If his thesis were valid for an earlier time (1951-65), many of these relationships disappeared between 1965 and 1981

Prospects for Economic Stability in Mexico

University of Texas Business Review, May-June 1983.Refereed Journal Articl

The Future Demand for Military Expenditure in Argentina

Arms Control, September 1986.Refereed Journal Articl

The Evolution and Evaluation of Saudi Arabian Economic Planning

Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Winter 1985.Refereed Journal Articl

Rail Track Expansion in Developing Countries in the 1980s

Logistics and Transport Review, vol. 34, no. 2, 1998.Refereed Journal ArticlePer capita income, country size, and economic growth are often seen as being major determinants of rail track expansion in developing countries. However, we could not empirically verify these explanations for rail expansion using recent World Bank data for a set of 35 developing countries. Instead, a factor analysis suggested multilateral loans to have been important. A discriminant analysis indicated only four variables are needed to predict a country's correct grouping into either a high and low rail expansion group. Regression analysis indicates that 1970s investment offset 1980s investment for the entire sample and the high expansion group. For the low expansion group, a factor capturing the quality of life appears to be the most important predictor of rail investment

Profiles of Current Latin American Arms Producers

International Organization, Summer 1986.Refereed Journal Articl

The Impact of Latin American Arms Production on Economic Performance

Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, Fall 1987.Refereed Journal Articl

Privatization of Public Sector Enterprises in Pakistan: Prospects for Reducing Regional Imbalances

Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, July 1995.Refereed Journal ArticleThis paper tests the somewhat counterintuitive hypothesis that public firms are more efficient than their private sector counterparts. A factor analysis (9 industrial groups/34 industries) indicated that for all Pakistani provinces, public enterprises contributed relatively more value added which supports the findings of Naqvi and Kamal. The paper also concludes that a policy to reduce Pakistan's regional income disparities by privatizing public enterprises would likely be ineffective

The Feasibility of Alternative IMF-Type Stabilization Programs in Mexico, 1984-87

Journal of Policy Modeling, November 1983.Refereed Journal ArticleIn November 1982, Mexico announced an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a program to ease the country's large foreign debt. Mexico may receive nearly $4 billion worth of credit if the government reduces the deficit, raises taxes and curbs imports. This article investigates whether an IMF program like this can work in Mexico without a serious and immediate economic contraction. A model is constructed to examine the impact of government fiscal activity under alternative stabilization programs. The analysis suggests a critical element for success is the ability and willingness to raise tax revenue