CC BYThe paper examines the links between economic indicators and the defence burden
in selected NATO countries during the period between 1980 and 2020. Three of the largest NATO
spenders in terms of defence, such as Greece, Turke, and the USA, have been chosen for the
investigation. The question being posed by this research is whether economic factors have an impact
on the defence burden. To answer this question, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (further ARDL)
modelling has been employed. The results reveal that, in the long-run, the defence burden responds
negatively to output changes in the cases of Turkey and Greece. Inflation and the number of military
personnel have positive effects on the defence burden in all three countries in the long-run. While in
Greece the government gross debt affects the defence burden positively, in the United States and
Turkey the government gross debt affects the defence burden negatively. Moreover, the investigation
has shown that defence expenditure is less affected by economic determinants in the short term rather
than in the long term. The outcomes of the study could be incorporated into the economic development
policies of Greece, Turkey and the USA