Empire: Public Goods and Bads

Christopher Coyne and Steve Davies

Econ Journal Watch, 2007, vol. 4, issue 1, 3-45

Abstract: Theodore Roosevelt used the US military to create what he called “civilized societies.†A growing literature focuses on the economic benefits of empires, benefits sometimes referred to as “global public goods†. Some authors, such as Mitchener and Weidenmier (2005) and Ferguson and Schularick (2006), neglect the associated public bads. This paper highlights the potential public bads. We formulate the leading public bads. We explore the public bads in the context explored by Mitchener and Weidenmier, namely, the Roosevelt Corollary and Latin America. Our discussion also moves to the broader plane, suggesting that the Roosevelt Corollary set a precedent for subsequent US military interventions around the world. We use the ratings of political institutions issued by the well-known Polity IV index to further support a skeptical view of imperial public good provision.

Keywords: empire; imperialism; global public goods; global public bads; Roosevelt Corollary (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N40 N46 P11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://econjwatch.org/File+download/134/2007-01-c ... com.pdf?mimetype=pdf (application/pdf)
https://econjwatch.org/231 (text/html)

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:ejw:journl:v:4:y:2007:i:1:p:3-45

Access Statistics for this article

Econ Journal Watch is currently edited by Daniel Klein

More articles in Econ Journal Watch from Econ Journal Watch Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jason Briggeman ().