External debt and military spending: the case of Africa's conflict countries

Stella Muhanji and Kalu Ojah

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In the light of the exigency and apparent irrationality of war and, the fact that most Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) in Africa are associated with prolonged conflicts, there is more than a suspicion that military spending contributes to the indebtedness of Africa’s conflict countries. We therefore model this suspected nexus and compute the impulse response functions to the shock in military spending and, particularly determine what precise time around war external debt accumulation is prevalent. We confirm a positive correlation between military spending and external debt for most of the conflict countries, with external debt increasing in response to a shock to military spending for all these countries. Using panel analysis, we find evidence of military expenditure’s upward pressure on external indebtedness during pre-war, war and post-war periods; interestingly, the post-war period registers the fastest rate of external debt accumulation than other relevant periods. Our results suggest that military spending can be an important and nuanced factor in designing external debt management policies for Africa’s conflict countries and their likes.

Keywords: External debt; Military spending; DSGE model; Conflict countries; Relevant war periods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F34 F41 F52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-05-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-dge
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:56077

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