Military Keynesianism: An Assessment

The recent recession has seen something of resurgence in the debate over military Keynesianism. Recent commentators who should no better have claimed that it would make sense to stimulate the US economy through increases in military spending, as though this has not been a commonly contested view over the last 40 years. A large literature has debated the economic effects of military spending and while it has reached no consensus, there is also little support for any belief that military spending is a good way of stimulating the economy. This paper makes a contribution to the debate by assessing the theoretical perspectives and the empirical approaches used. It then undertakes an analysis of the US using a number of approaches and the results suggest that the simple Military Keynesian arguments still lack empirical support.Military Spending; economic growth; VAR; CVAR

Arms Trade Offsets and Development

Offsets, arrangements that obligate the arms seller to reinvest (“offset”) arms sales proceeds in the purchasing country, are an increasingly important facet of the international trade in arms. They are used to justify spending on imports by promises that there will be significant benefits to the economy, through the promotion and development of local industry, technology and employment. Until recently, however, there has been little research on how well offsets work in practice. This paper is a ‘state-of-the-art’ review of our empirical knowledge regarding arms trade offsets. We find virtually no case where offset arrangements have yielded unambiguous net benefits for a country’s economic development. As a general rule arms trade offset deals are more costly than ‘off-the-shelf’ arms purchases, create little by way of new or sustainable employment, do not appear to contribute in any substantive way to general economic development, and with very few exceptions do not result in significant technology transfers, not even within the military sector.

Macroeconomics and Violence

This chapter considers macroeconomic aspects of violence. It moves beyond the usual focus on war to argue the economic importance of all forms and aspects of armed and unarmed violence. Violence refers to acts of self-harm, interpersonal violence, and collective violence. Self-harm includes suicide; interpersonal violence includes organized criminal violence as well as domestic and workplace violence. Collective violence generally denotes political entities that are in, or at risk of, internal or external violent conflict as well as those that are in an insecure postwar predicament or wracked by pervasive armed criminal violence. In the past these different aspects of violence have been studied by different academic disciplines, with political scientists and defense economists tending to study the causes, consequences, and, lately, potential remedies of large-scale collective violence; and criminologists, public health experts, and crime economists tending to study interpersonal violence and self harm. Recognizing the economic importance of all aspects of violence means that macroeconomic policy cannot be considered in isolation from microeconomic developments or from regional, sectoral, distributional, and other economic policies, nor from the social contexts in which violence takes place. The increasing complexity and interrelatedness of the various aspects of the economics of violence means that any discussion of the macroeconomic issues has to consider the cost of conflict and violence more broadly conceived. The chapter reviews violence, measures and measurements of the cost of violence, the economic causes and consequences of violence, some macroeconomic aspects of recovery from violence and postwar reconstruction, and some of the necessary framework conditions for recovery from violence.Keywords: Violence, macroeconomics, postconflict recovery, conflict-affected states

Military Spending and Development

This paper considers the link between arms spending and economic growth for developing countries, in particular whether high spending on arms is likely to have a negative effect on economic growth and what benefits that might be gained by reducing it. The literature is complex and difficult to summarize, with studies differing theoretically, in the empirical methods they use, in the coverage of countries and time series, and in their quality and significance. Nevertheless, the paper argues that the empirical analyses suggests that there is little or no evidence for a positive effect on economic growth and that it is more likely to have a negative effect, or at best no significant impact at all. Thus, reducing arms and military spending need not be costly and can contribute to, or at the very least provide the opportunity for, improved economic performance in developing countries.Military Spending; Development; growth

On the Cost of Violence and the Benefits of Peace

Wars can be immensely damaging to economies, and they can leave long-lasting scars on society. What are considered to be postwar or postviolence situations can see ongoing nonwar political, domestic, and criminal violence, with war economies not ending with the formal cessation of hostilities. Unarmed violence can have important effects and even forms of nonviolent conflict can carry substantial, measurable economic consequences. Surprisingly little substantive economics work on the subject is done particularly work that would deal with the possible paths countries can take from crises and there seems to exist an unfortunate lack of understanding among economists of the complexities of war and violence and its impact on economy and society, leaving a sometimes unrecognized legacy of violence and loss. This essay deals with some of the issues involved.Macroeconomics; violence; costs and benefits; peace; conflict-affected states

The Military Industrial Complex

This paper reviews the origin and theoretical foundation of the concept Military-Industrial Complex and explains the key issues involved in the literature on the MIC in the Cold war context. It then considers the implications for the MIC of some main post-Cold War developments, with particular emphasis on the arms industry, its structure and effects. It then assesses the degree to which the end of the Cold War may result in a fundamental change of the MIC.Arms Industry; MIC

Arms Trade Offsets: What Do We Know?

This chapter is a review of our empirical knowledge regarding arms trade offsets. Extant evidence suggests that offset arrangements do not yield net benefits for a country’s economic development. As a general rule arms trade offset deals are more costly than off-the-shelf arms purchases, create little by way of new or sustainable employment, do not appear to contribute in any substantive way to general economic development, and with very few exceptions do not result in significant technology transfers, not even within the military sector. As of 2009, the United States and the European Union have taken official government positions against offset deals. Nonetheless, arms trade offsets are a flourishing practice.Arms Offsets; defence; arms trade

Peace, War and International Security: Economic Theories (trial entry)

This paper considers the economic theories that are relevant for the study of peace war and international security . It presents different levels of generality, starting with the big questions of international security, which are usually the domain of international relations, before moving to general economic theoretical perspectives and then focusing on some specific developments in economics and security. More specifically it reviews the economics of security, distinguishing neoclassical theories, Keynesian and institutional, Marxist, and monopoly capital, before discussing the issues involved in the debate between the schools of thought. The economics of conflict is then considered, starting with the approach economists have taken –mainly neoclassical, before considering more general political economy perspectives.Economics; Peace; war; security;

Trade Technology and Employment: A case Study of South Africa

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of trade on employment in South Africa. Firstly, it considers the correlation between trade liberalisation and factor demand in South African manufacturing during the 1990s. Secondly, it investigates the impact of trade on labour using a Chenery (1979) style decomposition technique, following Edwards (2001a, 2001b, 2005b) and Jenkins (2002). It develops the earlier work by exploring both the indirect and the indirect effects and investigating variations in the regional impact of trade on factor demand during the 1990s. This suggests that technological change accounts for the bulk of jobs lost in manufacturing during the 1990s. To investigate, whether this reflects exogenous technological change or trade-induced technological change requires undertaking an econometric analysis and this explores the impact of trade on technological change through an induced labour demand model. This finds a strong effect of exogenous technological progress but only limited evidence that increased trade flows and trade liberalisation induced improvements in labour productivity.Trade; technology; employment; industrial panel

The Changing Military Industrial Complex

The first reference to a military industrial complex (MIC) was made by US President Eisenhower in 1961. He then referred to something historically specific: the build-up of a large permanent military establishment and a permanent arms industry, which raised his concerns for the unwarranted influence of these societal forces. Subsequently the meaning of the MIC evolved to refer to the vested interests within the state and industry in expanding the military sector and in increasing military spending, with external threats providing the justification. During the Cold War, when the defence was strongly focused on deterrence, this produced a set of specific state-industry relationships that in turn generated a beneficial environment for the development and strengthening of the MIC. With the end of the Cold War, the conditions for a strong MIC were less favourable, at least initially, with changes in the international security environment, cuts in military spending and arms production, and ensuing privatisation, commercialisation, and internationalisation of military activities as well as of arms production. This paper discusses how the MIC has been affected by these changes and the degree to which there has been continuity of old power structures and a continuing MIC.MIC; Military industry; globalisation; security