Suchergebnisse

While military governments have often been a tradition in many Latin American countries, a relatively small and stable number of national resources are traditionally allocated to national defense. Recent studies on the determinants of defense spending in this region have employed data only through the mid-1980s. Since then, sweeping economic and political changes have occurred in the region. This article examines the factors influencing Latin American defense allocations for fifteen countries in the 1980s to the mid-1990s. We posit a long-term relationship between defense and other variables (such as GNP), and employ a technique to separate year to year movements in the defense burden into components associated with (a) short-run factors and (b) the correction of the deviation from the long-run pattern. Factors such as military influence and changes in regional defense expenditures are examined. The results suggest that for most of the 15 countries, a high proportion of the defense burden is explained by relatively few variables. For six countries, no long-run trend was identified and defense expenditures are determined by short-run shocks. For the other nine countries, equilibrating corrections are made to the defense budget in response to short-run shocks.

While military governments have often been a tradition in many Latin American countries. a relatively small and stable amount of national resources is traditionally allocated to national defense. Most of the recent studies on the determinants of defense in this region of the world have employed data only through the midl 980s. Since then sweeping economic and political changes have taken place especially in Latin America. This paper examines the factors which have influenced Latin American defense allocations for fifteen countries in the 1980s to the mid- l 990s. We suggest that a long-run relationship exists between defense expenditures and other variables such as GNP and employ a technique to decompose year to year movements in the defense burden into two components: the component associated with shortrun factors and the component associated with correcting the deviation in the defense burden from the long-run pattern. Factors such as the military·s influence. and changes in regional military expenditures are examined. Our results suggest that for most of the fifteen countries a high proportion of the defense burden can be explained by a relatively small number of variables. For six countries, no long-run trend was identified and defense expenditures are determined by short-run shocks. For the other nine countries, equilibrating corrections are made to the defense budget in response to short-run shocks.

In the last twenty years, there has been a growing interest in quantifying the `guns versus butter' tradeoff facing developing countries. This article examines Pakistan's military expenditures between 1973 and 1986 and estimates both a short-run impact model and long-run adjustment model to measure how changes in the defense burden, the deficit, and government debt have affected budget allocations to economic services programs and administrative/social programs. In addition, we investigate whether defense budgets have been increased or maintained either at the expense of economic and social programs in general or merely confined to one or two specific programs. Military expenditure patterns are analyzed to see whether or not they were responsible for across-the-board cuts in long-term infrastructure programs. Our analysis indicates that the deficit, the debt service, and the military burden are often interrelated in such a complex manner that the impact of any specific program is difficult to predict. in the short run, most infrastructure programs increased as the military burden declined. The opposite was generally true for social programs such as social security, welfare, and housing. Changes in the defense budget appear to have only a transitory effect on the share of government expenditures allocated toward infrastructure. The long-run model suggests that social programs have just as high a priority as economic services. When the military burden increases, the government is willing to take some resources from infrastructure programs and lets the deficit grow to finance social programs. Our results also suggest a long run pattern of adjustment in social programs but not infrastructure programs - a counter-intuitive result given Pakistan's severe infrastructure constraints.

During the 1980s both defense spending and arms imports declined in many developing countries (DCs), especially in the Middle East and to a lesser degree in South Asia and Northern Africa1 • In large part, the reductions in defense allocations resulted from growing fiscal problems which forced governments to reorder their spending priorities. It is apparent for the developing world as a whole that countries are indeed examining the potential benefits of reduced defense allocations. Depending on the relative impact of defense spending, the concomitant resource reallocation may significantly affect the economic performance of these countries. This paper examines whether future "peace dividends" are likely to stimulate or to retard third world economic growth. To do this, we examine whether (a) military spending and arms imports helped or hindered growth in the 1980s, (b) military spending/arms imports were associated with changes in external debt, and (c) military expenditures impacted uniformly between groups of countries. We hypothesize that DCs will exhibit large variations in how defense spending has impacted economic performance. In turn these variations, it is believed, reflect the underlying health of the individual country, i.e., its ability to absorb the. potential adverse effects associated with changes in defense spending patterns.

The paper examines the economic determinants of defence spending in Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. The results suggest that economic variables and resource availability are probably the main determinants of military expenditures. (DÜI-Sen)