The nexus between arms imports, military expenditures and economic growth of the top arms importers in the world: a pooled mean group approach
Shreesh Chary
Journal of Economic Studies, 2023, vol. 51, issue 4, 808-822
Abstract:
Purpose - This paper explores whether data back the claim that imports of armaments are inherently bad for economic growth. Regardless of one's point of view, the production and trade of weaponry is a significant industry with serious economic implications that warrant investigation. The financial repercussions of military spending have been extensively studied, but the economic effects of arms importation remain unknown. Design/methodology/approach - This study adopts a pooled mean group approach to investigate the nexus between arms imports, military expenditure and per capita GDP for a balanced panel of twenty-five of the top arms importers in the world from 2000 to 2021. Findings - The authors find that arms imports and military spending negatively impact GDP per capita in the short run, but military spending is beneficial over the long run. The authors also used the Dumitrescu Hurlin Granger causality test, which revealed a unidirectional causation between per capita GDP and military expenditure, and a unidirectional causal relationship from military spending to arms imports. Research limitations/implications - This paper is deficient in a few aspects: first, it looks at only those countries comprising the top 70% of arms imports. Second, it omits many political, technological and legal factors that impact arms imports and military expenditures. Originality/value - This paper looks into the impact of defense spending and arms imports on economic growth for twenty-five nations with the highest share of arms imports in recent times. It is a significant addition to the literature as it resolves the debate of whether or not the military expenditure is wasteful and whether arms imports significantly harm the nation's economic growth.
Keywords: Arms imports; Dumitrescu-Hurlin Granger causality; Economic growth; Military expenditure; PMG-ARDL (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
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:eme:jespps:jes-05-2023-0265
DOI: 10.1108/JES-05-2023-0265
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Economic Studies is currently edited by Prof Mohsen Bahmani-Oskooee
More articles in Journal of Economic Studies from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().