Defence and Employment in the UK and France: A Comparative Study of the Existing Results

Jacques Aben and Ronald Smith
Additional contact information
Jacques Aben: University of Montpellier

Chapter 18 in Peace, Defence and Economic Analysis, 1987, pp 384-398 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter reviews the available, input-output based studies of the relation between military expenditure and employment in Britain and France. It has a substantive objective: to contrast the employment impacts in the two countries within a comparable framework; and a methodological objective: to investigate the limits to comparison posed by differences in measurement procedures, definitions and military structure in the two countries. Although the UK spent a higher proportion of GDP on defence than France, the proportion of the labour force devoted to military activities is similar in the two countries. However, within these similar totals the structure of employment is quite different because of the high productivity of the French defence industries and the substitutions induced by the availability of conscripts. The distribution of employment by industry differs between the countries, but interpretation of the difference is complicated by diversity in industrial classification. As for the regional distribution, the UK shows more concentration, perhaps because of the absence of a policy of decentralisation for military and political reasons.

Keywords: Military Expenditure; Military Spending; Defence Spending; Employment Impact; Defence Budget (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:intecp:978-1-349-18898-7_18

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349188987

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-18898-7_18

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in International Economic Association Series from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().