IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/defpea/v36y2025i1p86-101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Military Expenditures on Economic Growth: A New Instrumental Variables Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Luqman Saeed

Abstract

Endogeneity problems have plagued efforts to estimate the impact of military expenditures on economic growth. This paper addresses this problem with two instruments for military expenditures: the value of arms imports during periods of peace and the number of neighboring states suffering interstate violence. While positively correlated with military expenditures, the value of arms imports is unlikely to be determined by economic growth because of the time lag which exists, which in many cases runs into several years, between the placement of purchase orders for these arms and their delivery. The number of neighboring states suffering interstate violence captures regional ‘political uncertainty’, which spurs military spending without capturing the actual scale of domestic political violence which may directly affect economic growth. Several diagnostic tests show that both these instruments are highly correlated with military expenditures and fulfill overidentification restrictions. The results from empirical analyses of panel data on 133 countries during the 1960-2012 period indicate that an increase in military expenditure/GDP of 1 percentage point reduces economic growth by 1.10 percentage points. These results are robust to the application of 2SLS, LIML, and GMM estimators.

Suggested Citation

  • Luqman Saeed, 2025. "The Impact of Military Expenditures on Economic Growth: A New Instrumental Variables Approach," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 86-101, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:36:y:2025:i:1:p:86-101
    DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2023.2259651
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10242694.2023.2259651
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10242694.2023.2259651?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. Michael D. Stroup & Jac C. Heckelman, 2001. "Size of the Military Sector and Economic Growth: A Panel Data Analysis of Africa and Latin America," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 329-360, November.
    2. repec:cup:apsrev:v:113:y:2019:i:03:p:868-881_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Chan, Steve, 1988. "Defense Burden and Economic Growth: Unraveling the Taiwanese Enigma," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(3), pages 913-920, September.
    4. Alessandra Conte & Silvia Migali, 2019. "The role of conflict and organized violence in international forced migration," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(14), pages 393-424.
    5. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    6. Pavel Yakovlev, 2007. "Arms Trade, Military Spending, And Economic Growth," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 317-338.
    7. José Luis Montiel Olea & Carolin Pflueger, 2013. "A Robust Test for Weak Instruments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 358-369, July.
    8. Landau, Daniel, 1996. "Is one of the 'peace dividends' negative? Military expenditure and economic growth in the wealthy OECD countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 183-195.
    9. J. Paul Dunne & Nan Tian, 2013. "Military expenditure and economic growth: A survey," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 8(1), pages 5-11, April.
    10. Joshua Aizenman & Reuven Glick, 2006. "Military expenditure, threats, and growth," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 129-155.
    11. Giorgio d’Agostino & John Paul Dunne & Luca Pieroni, 2019. "Military Expenditure, Endogeneity and Economic Growth," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(5), pages 509-524, July.
    12. Nusrate Aziz & M. Niaz Asadullah, 2017. "Military spending, armed conflict and economic growth in developing countries in the post-Cold War era," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 44(1), pages 47-68, January.
    13. Andrew Phiri, 2019. "Does Military Spending Nonlinearly Affect Economic Growth in South Africa?," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 474-487, June.
    14. repec:bla:econom:v:63:y:1996:i:252:p:649-72 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. J. Paul Dunne & Nan Tian, 2015. "Military Expenditure, Economic Growth and Heterogeneity," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 15-31, February.
    16. Christos Kollias & Nikolaos Mylonidis & Suzanna-Maria Paleologou, 2007. "A Panel Data Analysis Of The Nexus Between Defence Spending And Growth In The European Union," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 75-85.
    17. Ron P. Smith, 2017. "Military Expenditure Data: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 422-428, July.
    18. J. Paul Dunne & Ron Smith & Dirk Willenbockel, 2005. "Models Of Military Expenditure And Growth: A Critical Review," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(6), pages 449-461.
    19. Clive Trebilcock, 1973. "British Armaments and European Industrialization, 1890–1914," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 26(2), pages 254-272, May.
    20. James C. Murdoch & Todd Sandler, 2004. "Civil Wars and Economic Growth: Spatial Dispersion," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 138-151, January.
    21. Fariss, Christopher J., 2019. "Yes, Human Rights Practices Are Improving Over Time," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(3), pages 868-881, August.
    22. Ã…dne Cappelen & Nils Petter Gleditsch & Olav Bjerkholt, 1984. "Military Spending and Economic Growth in the OECD Countries," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 21(4), pages 361-373, December.
    23. Christos Kollias & Nikolaos Mylonidis & Suzanna-Maria Paleologou, 2007. "A Panel Data Analysis Of The Nexus Between Defence Spending And Growth In The European Union: A Reply," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 581-583.
    24. Chang, Hsin-Chen & Huang, Bwo-Nung & Yang, Chin Wei, 2011. "Military expenditure and economic growth across different groups: A dynamic panel Granger-causality approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 2416-2423.
    25. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Siew Ling Yew, 2018. "The effect of military expenditure on growth: an empirical synthesis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1357-1387, November.
    2. Alessandra Cepparulo & Paolo Pasimeni, 2024. "Defence Spending in the European Union," European Economy - Discussion Papers 199, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    3. Lukasz Wiktor Olejnik, 2023. "Economic growth and military expenditure in the countries on NATOʼs Eastern flank in 1999–2021," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2023-2, Bank of Estonia, revised 09 May 2023.
    4. Christos Kollias & Suzanna-Maria Paleologou, 2019. "Military spending, economic growth and investment: a disaggregated analysis by income group," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 935-958, March.
    5. Alptekin, Aynur & Levine, Paul, 2012. "Military expenditure and economic growth: A meta-analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 636-650.
    6. Hou Na & Chen Bo, 2014. "Military Spending and Economic Growth in An Augmented Solow Model: A Panel Data Investigation for OECD Countries," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 395-409, August.
    7. E. Desli & A. Gkoulgkoutsika, 2021. "Military spending and economic growth: a panel data investigation," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 781-806, August.
    8. E. Desli & A. Gkoulgkoutsika & C. Katrakilidis, 2017. "Investigating the Dynamic Interaction between Military Spending and Economic Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 511-526, August.
    9. Charles Shaaba Saba & Nicholas Ngepah, 2019. "Military expenditure and economic growth: evidence from a heterogeneous panel of African countries," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 3586-3606, January.
    10. Paula Gómez-Trueba Santamaría & Alfredo Arahuetes García & Tomás Curto González, 2021. "A tale of five stories: Defence spending and economic growth in NATO´s countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-22, January.
    11. Ahad, Muhammad & Dar, Adeel Ahmad, 2017. "Modeling the Asymmetric Impact of Defense Spending on Economic Growth: An Evidence from Nonlinear ARDL and Multipliers," MPRA Paper 80085, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2017.
    12. Serhan Cevik & John Ricco, 2018. "No buck for the bang: revisiting the military-growth nexus," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 639-653, November.
    13. Shakoor Ahmed & Khorshed Alam & Afzalur Rashid & Jeff Gow, 2020. "Militarisation, Energy Consumption, CO2 Emissions and Economic Growth in Myanmar," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 615-641, August.
    14. Dimitrios Karamanis, 2022. "Defence partnerships, military expenditure, investment, and economic growth: an analysis in PESCO countries," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 173, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    15. Shreesh Chary, 2023. "The nexus between arms imports, military expenditures and economic growth of the top arms importers in the world: a pooled mean group approach," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 51(4), pages 808-822, August.
    16. Ourania Dimitraki & Kyriakos Emmanouilidis, 2024. "Analysis of the Economic Effects of Defence Spending in Spain: A Re-Examination Through Dynamic ARDL Simulations and Kernel-Based Regularized Least Squares," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(7), pages 908-930, October.
    17. Julien Malizard, 2016. "Military expenditure and economic growth in the European Union: Evidence from SIPRI’s extended dataset," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 11(2), pages 38-44, October.
    18. Njamen Kengdo Arsène Aurelien & Nchofoung Tii N. & Kos A Mougnol Alice, 2023. "Determinants of Military Spending in Africa: Do Institutions Matter?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 29(4), pages 401-440, December.
    19. Hanson Robert & Jeon Joo Young, 2024. "The Military Expenditure – Economic Growth Nexus Revisited: Evidence from the United Kingdom," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 30(2), pages 207-248.
    20. Abdulnasser Hatemi-J & Tsangyao Chang & Wen-Yi Chen & Feng-Li Lin & Rangan Gupta, 2015. "Asymmetric Granger Causality between Military Expenditures and Economic Growth in Top Six Defense Suppliers," Working Papers 201565, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:taf:defpea:v:36:y:2025:i:1:p:86-101. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GDPE20 .

    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.