IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v94y2021icp433-441.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is military spending converging to a low level across countries?

Author

Listed:
  • Clements, Benedict J.
  • Gupta, Sanjeev
  • Khamidova, Saida

Abstract

Military spending in relation to national GDP and government budgets in both advanced and developing economies has fallen considerably since the end of Cold War. The previous papers have studied convergence in military spending by deploying methodologies used to analyze convergence in country growth rates and other economic variables. In this paper, we employ an improved technique and more up-to data for 138 countries during 1970–2019 to study convergence in military spending. We find that there is indeed convergence in military spending across countries, but in 3 distinct groups, with each group comprising both advanced and developing countries. A country’s membership of a group is influenced by political stability and risk of violence in the country, the level of its social spending and military spending by its neighbors. Our empirical results have important implications for a key budget component in both advanced and developing countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Clements, Benedict J. & Gupta, Sanjeev & Khamidova, Saida, 2021. "Is military spending converging to a low level across countries?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 433-441.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:94:y:2021:i:c:p:433-441
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2020.10.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999320312281
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2020.10.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter C. B. Phillips & Donggyu Sul, 2007. "Transition Modeling and Econometric Convergence Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(6), pages 1771-1855, November.
    2. Nordhaus, William & Oneal, John R. & Russett, Bruce, 2012. "The Effects of the International Security Environment on National Military Expenditures: A Multicountry Study," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 491-513, July.
    3. Stéphane Bonhomme & Elena Manresa, 2015. "Grouped Patterns of Heterogeneity in Panel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(3), pages 1147-1184, May.
    4. Beylunioğlu, Fuat C. & Yazgan, M. Ege & Stengos, Thanasis, 2020. "Detecting Convergence Clubs," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 629-669, April.
    5. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    6. Arvanitidis Paschalis & Kollias Christos & Anastasopoulos Konstantinos, 2014. "Is There an International Convergence in Defence Burdens? Some Initial Findings," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 611-620, December.
    7. Ulrich Fritsche & Vladimir Kuzin, 2011. "Analysing convergence in Europe using the non-linear single factor model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 343-369, October.
    8. Chen, Pei-Fen & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Chiu, Yi-Bin, 2014. "The nexus between defense expenditure and economic growth: New global evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 474-483.
    9. Peter C. B. Phillips & Donggyu Sul, 2009. "Economic transition and growth," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(7), pages 1153-1185.
    10. Monfort, Mercedes & Cuestas, Juan Carlos & Ordóñez, Javier, 2013. "Real convergence in Europe: A cluster analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 689-694.
    11. James D. Hamilton, 2018. "Why You Should Never Use the Hodrick-Prescott Filter," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(5), pages 831-843, December.
    12. Rockoff, Hugh, 1998. "The Peace Dividend in Historical Perspective," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 46-50, May.
    13. Chi Keung Marco Lau & Ender Demir & Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin, 2016. "A Nonlinear Model of Military Expenditure Convergence: Evidence From Estar Nonlinear Unit Root Test," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 392-403, June.
    14. By Davoodi & Benedict Clements & Jerald Schiff & Peter Debaere, 2001. "Military Spending, the Peace Dividend, and Fiscal Adjustment," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(2), pages 1-4.
    15. Mr. Daniel P. Hewitt, 1991. "Military Expenditure: Econometric Testing of Economic and Political Influences," IMF Working Papers 1991/053, International Monetary Fund.
    16. d'Agostino, G. & Dunne, J.P. & Pieroni, L., 2011. "Optimal military spending in the US: A time series analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1068-1077, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nabin, Munirul H. & Chowdhury, Mohammad Tarequl H. & Bhattacharya, Sukanto & Sgro, Pasquale M., 2022. "Terrorism and uneven economic development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    2. Caruso Raul & Antonella Biscione, 2022. "Militarization and Income Inequality in European Countries (2000–2017)," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 28(3), pages 267-285, September.
    3. Rafał Woźniak & Jacek Lewkowicz, 2023. "Can We Have More Butter and Guns Simultaneously? An Endogeneity Perspective," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 28-46.
    4. Adam, Antonis & Tsavou, Evi, 2022. "Do natural disasters fuel terrorism? The role of state capacity," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mr. Benedict J. Clements & Mr. Sanjeev Gupta & Saida Khamidova, 2019. "Is Military Spending Converging Across Countries? An Examination of Trends and Key Determinants," IMF Working Papers 2019/196, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Charles Shaaba Saba & Nicholas Ngepah & Christian Nsiah, 2020. "Convergence in military expenditure and economic growth in Africa and its regional economic communities: evidence from a club clustering algorithm," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 1832344-183, January.
    3. Małgorzata Porada Rochoń, 2021. "Convergence in Green Growth as the Key to Fighting Climate Change, 1990–2019," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-11, December.
    4. Linda Glawe & Helmut Wagner, 2021. "Divergence Tendencies in the European Integration Process: A Danger for the Sustainability of the E(M)U?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, March.
    5. Fabio Mazzola & Pietro Pizzuto, 2020. "Great Recession and club convergence in Europe: A cross‐country, cross‐region panel analysis (2000–2015)," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 676-711, June.
    6. Alka Obadić & Vladimir Arčabić & Lucija Rogić Dumančić, 2021. "Labor market institutions convergence in the European Union," EFZG Working Papers Series 2102, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb.
    7. Matysiak, George & Olszewski, Krzysztof, 2019. "A Panel Analysis of Polish Regional Cities Residential Price Convergence in the Primary Market," MPRA Paper 94660, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Linda Glawe & Carlos Mendez, 2023. "Schooling Ain’t Learning in Europe: A Club Convergence Perspective," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(2), pages 324-361, June.
    9. Sayel Basel & R. Prabhakara Rao & K. U. Gopakumar, 2021. "Analysis of club convergence for economies: identification and testing using development indices," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 885-908, October.
    10. Holmes, Mark J. & Otero, Jesús & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2019. "Property heterogeneity and convergence club formation among local house prices," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-13.
    11. Konrad Lyncker & Rasmus Thoennessen, 2017. "Regional club convergence in the EU: evidence from a panel data analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 525-553, March.
    12. Desli, Evangelia & Gkoulgkoutsika, Alexandra, 2021. "Economic convergence among the world’s top-income economies," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 841-853.
    13. Saba Charles Shaaba & Ngepah Nicholas, 2020. "Military expenditure and security outcome convergence in African regional economic communities: evidence from the convergence club algorithm," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 26(1), pages 1-28, February.
    14. Arčabić, Vladimir & Kim, Kyoung Tae & You, Yu & Lee, Junsoo, 2021. "Century-long dynamics and convergence of income inequality among the US states," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Cutrini, Eleonora, 2019. "Economic integration, structural change, and uneven development in the European Union," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 102-113.
    16. Cavallaro, Eleonora & Villani, Ilaria, 2021. "Real income convergence and the patterns of financial integration in the EU," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    17. Nghiem, Son & Tran, Bach & Afoakwah, Clifford & Byrnes, Joshua & Scuffham, Paul, 2021. "Wealthy, healthy and green: Are we there yet?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    18. Kerkemeier, Marco & Kruse-Becher, Robinson, 2022. "Join the club! Dynamics of global ESG indices convergence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    19. Holmes, Mark J. & Iregui, Ana María & Otero, Jesús, 2019. "Interest rate convergence across maturities: Evidence from bank data in an emerging market economy," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 57-70.
    20. Juan Ángel Lafuente & Amparo Marco & Mercedes Monfort & Javier Ordóñez, 2020. "Social Exclusion and Convergence in the EU: An Assessment of the Europe 2020 Strategy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-22, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Military spending; Social spending; Convergence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:94:y:2021:i:c:p:433-441. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.