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With a view toward two purposes, the article examines measures of United States military expenditure. It first discusses what types of data would be most suitable for the analysis of the economic burden of such expenditure and it explains, second, why existing databases with U.S. (and global) military expenditure coverage have limited validity, and therefore utility, for the first purpose. The article advances the concepts of minimal and maximal augmented military expenditure measures to better capture the full economic resource burden imposed on an economy than do the presently available measures. The difference of current measures to the proposed augmented measures is not primarily one of an intercept change but mostly of a slope change. The article claims that, by fiscal year 2018, the economic burden imposed by military expenditure on the U.S. economy when using the augmented measures is about double the size of the burden as measured by all of the currently available measures. Since, to date, most empirical work on the effects of military expenditure on economies tends to rely on inappropriate measures, misleading findings may have resulted.

AbstractThis essay selectively reviews the history of economic thought on war and peace, starting with Adam Smith. Today, Smith's trickle of thoughts has become a broad marshland. In this marshland, however, discrete currents are apparent – some stronger, some weaker – which this essay identifies, in rough chronological order, as war, defense, conflict, military, security, and peace economics. As these terms often are used interchangeably, one purpose of the essay is to more clearly delineate these intellectual currents and differentiate them from each other. By building canals in the marshlands as it were, the aim is to help all flows of contributions become stronger.

The article establishes methods by which to estimate demand and supply in the commercial firearms market in the United States. For the first time, this includes the number of used firearms resold via federally licensed retailers. For 2010, for example, total unit sales are estimated at 9.8 million pistols, revolvers, rifles, and shotguns, about 1.5 million of which were used weapons. The total number of military and nonmilitary firearms that entered commerce between 1986 and 2010 is estimated at about 150 million units. Allowing for pre-1986 production and imports, this lends credence to the notion that the total stock of firearms in the U.S. averages about one firearm per person. The article further shows rising firearms imports. In 2010, these amounted to about one-third of the total market. In addition to imports, foreign brands also produce at U.S. locations and, in 2010, captured well over 20 percent of the U.S. commercial pistol market.

This article is an exercise in economic methodology. It replicates two published models of the effect of military expenditure on the United States economy but, in order to study variations in the relevant estimated parameters, applies two different military expenditure data sets to the models (budget vs . National Income and Product Accounts [NIPA] data). In an extension, the article examines coefficient stability when the economically preferred NIPA data are applied across varying time-periods. Two major findings are that economic models should avoid the use of budget data and that even when the preferred NIPA data are used, estimated parameters are highly unstable across time.

The article reviews Vernon Ruttan's new book, Is Growth Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technological Development (Oxford University Press, 2006). The subject matter is limited to the post-world war II United States only. Studying six general-purpose technologies emerging from war environments, the book claims that much of the U.S. post-war growth experience can be attributed to them. The reviewer finds that this is not Prof. Ruttan's best work, in part because the underlying research is too casual to support the conclusions drawn.

The article discusses, first, systems control theory, which tells us how a self-regulating system, for example of social and political peace, should work. Second, it considers the theory of imperfect markets, which tells us just why peace and security frequently fail to be obtained. Third, it discusses collective action theory, which tells us what might be required for collective intervention in another state's affairs to take place. These set the context, fourth, for a new idea - a theory of intervention - that might explain why individual states, rather than a collective of states, intervene or fail to intervene elsewhere. Fifth, to learn whether the practice of intervention appears to follow the theory laid out, descriptive evidence is presented for interventions undertaken by Australia, Canada, India, and New Zealand, 1899 to 2005.