U.S. Troops and Foreign Economic Growth

Garett Jones and T. Kane

Defence and Peace Economics, 2012, vol. 23, issue 3, 225-249

Abstract: Do American troops help or hinder economic growth in other countries? We consider a newly constructed dataset of the deployment of U.S. troops over the years 1950--2000 and discover a positive relationship between deployed troops and host country economic growth, which is robust to multiple control variables. Each tenfold increase in U.S. troops is associated with a one--third percentage point increase in average host country annual growth. We explore three possible causal explanations: a Keynesian aggregate demand boost; the diffusion of institutions; and security. Extensive econometric testing, including the use of panel data, confirms the core relationship.

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2011.585043

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