Defense Expenditures and Economic Growth in Developing Countries
Abstract
Studies 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.
Description
Armed Forces and Society, Summer, 1983.
Refereed Journal Article
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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