Suchergebnisse

Includes bibliographical references ; This dissertation is a collection of studies on the economics of peace and security. Chapter one introduces the roles military spending and conic play in affecting economic growth, while also considering the causes of civil conflict. Chapter two investigates the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth, considering group heterogeneity and non-linearity. Using an exogenous growth model and dynamic panel approach, the results suggest military burden to have a negative effect on growth. Breaking the overall panel down into various sub-samples shows estimates that are remark-ably consistent with the full panel. These results provide strong support for the argument that military spending has an adverse effect on growth. There are, however, some intriguing results suggesting that for certain types of countries military burden has no negative growth effect. Chapter three deals with the transnational spatial spillover effects of conflict on neighbouring countries. It moves beyond using geographical dis-tance as a spillover measurement and allows for economic and political distances. The initial empirical results suggest that conflict has a strong negative spillover effect on directly contiguous countries growth, but no significant impacts were observed for non-contiguous countries. When economic and political factors are considered, this result remains, but the spillover effect is smaller. While the impact of conflict remains devastating, it is important to take other factors into account as studies using only geographical distance may be overestimating the impact on neighbours. The fourth chapter examines the determinants of civil war, using a zero-inflated modelling approach to deal with excess zeroes in the dependent variable. Traditional probit and logit models have limited capacity in dealing with this issue and can create misleading results, which is illustrated through replicating published work. A general greed-grievance model is then estimated giving further support to using zero-inflated models. While the standard probit models tend to emphasise opportunity variables, consistent in other studies, the zero inflated model gives supports both opportunity and grievance variables. In particular, ethnicity, democracy and inequality are found to play a significant role in civil war prevalence. Finally, chapter five summarises the findings of the dissertation, providing some policy recommendations, concluding remarks and discusses future research opportunities.

Includes bibliographical references. ; This paper examines the impact of military expenditure on economic growth on a large balanced panel, using an exogenous growth model and dynamic panel data methods for 104 countries over the period 1988-2010. The prime objective of the paper is to consider the possibility of non-linearity, group heterogeneity and endogeneity within the sample. Having estimated and appraised a full sample, it is stratified based upon a range of potentially relevant factors; different levels of income, conflict experience, natural resource abundance, openness and aid. Following the stratification process, a set of instrumental variables are taken for military spending. Using 2SLS and a dynamic Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method, the sample is regressed to identify for military expenditure.

This article describes the history of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's (SIPRI) arms producing and military services companies database (AIDB) as well as its purpose, its main strengths and deficiencies, and its data collection and implementation processes. It presents ideas to improve the AIDB discussed at an expert workshop held in Stockholm on 23–24 March 2018 and reports on concrete recommendations that SIPRI wishes to take forward to improve the database. The article's first section provides an overview of the database's history. The second section moves on to AIDB's weaknesses and strengths, its data collection approach, and the sources and methods used. Section three discusses deficiencies of the database. Section four details aspects of the expert workshop and the important takeaways from the two-day meeting. The final section offers possible solution approaches to problems with the database.

This article considers the determinants of conflict in Africa. It revisits the greed versus grievance debate to consider the specific regional context and changing nature of conflict in Africa. This is a literature that has grown rapidly in economics and political science, but some recent developments in modeling and conceptualization are providing important new contributions. The article uses the zero-inflated ordered probit technique that deals with the problem of excess zeros in datasets, revisits the definition of conflict, and improves upon some proxy measures. It also considers the substantive as well as statistical significance of the variables. Changes in the technique used provide more support for the influence of grievance terms than given credit for with the usual probit model approach. Both greed and grievance determine conflict in Africa.

This article compares results of our 2015 study of the effect of military expenditure on economic growth, 1988–2010, with results using an additional 28 years of data provided in the newly revised and extended SIPRI dataset, 1960–2014. When the additional data points are added, we find no substantive differences and confirm the statistically significant negative effect of military expenditure on growth reported in our prior research. Using the same estimation process, there is no evidence of a structural break in the time series. Considering nonlinearity and heterogeneity, the estimates using the new data for ninety-seven countries are remarkably consistent with the earlier results and, overall, are very similar in sign and statistical significance, and many of the coefficients are larger (more adverse) than before. The new data provide valuable extra information and support for the original findings.

Until recently, a long-standing, impressively large, and growing literature on the effects of military expenditure on economic growth appeared to have failed to result in a scholarly consensus. But the availability of 20 more years of data since the thawing of the cold war has helped researchers to make progress in identifying any relation of military expenditure with economic factors. The literature is complex and difficult to summarize, with studies differing in their theoretical approach, in the empirical methods used, in the coverage of countries and time periods employed, and in their quality and statistical significance. This article extends and updates an earlier survey, now covering almost 170 studies. It finds that more recent studies provide stronger evidence of a negative effect of military expenditure on economic growth.