Structural Breaks in Military Expenditures: Evidence for Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria

Aamer Abu-Qarn () and Abu-Bader, Suleiman ()
Additional contact information
Abu-Bader, Suleiman: Department of Economics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

No 231, Working Papers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics

Abstract: IThis paper endogenously determines the timing of structural breaks in military expenditures and military burdens for the major parties involved in the Israeli-Arab conflict, namely Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria over the period 1960-2004. Utilizing a test proposed by Vogelsang (1997), we find that all these countries experienced structural breaks, though at different periods in the late 70s and during the 80s. These structural breaks mark a sharp decline in the military burden that can be attributed to the peace talks that were initiated shortly after the 1973 war. When applying the Bai and Perron (1998, 2003) multiple structural break tests we detect two structural breaks for every country. The first break occurred during the 60s and demonstrated a significant rise in the military burden prior to the 1973 war, whereas the second break occurred in the late 70s and during the 80s and was characterized by a sharp decline in the military burden following the instigation of peace negotiations.

Keywords: Military Expenditures; Military Burden; Middle-East; Israeli-Arab Conflict; Structural Breaks. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H56 O53 C22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa and nep-his
Date: Written 2007
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.bgu.ac.il/papers/231.pdf First version, 2006 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Structural Breaks in Military Expenditures: Evidence for Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Ruslan Sergienko ().