Open AccessMilitarization, Investment and Economic Growth 1995-2019: Initial Global Findings
Author(s) -
Christos Kollias,
Nickolaos Tzeremes
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
the economics of peace and security journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.181
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-852X
DOI - 10.15355/epsj.17.1.17
Subject(s) - militarization , gross domestic product , economics , gross fixed capital formation , investment (military) , index (typography) , real gross domestic product , international economics , international trade , monetary economics , macroeconomics , political science , politics , world wide web , computer science , law
The economic effects of defense spending have attracted considerable attention in the literature. Invariably, the defense burden, i.e., the military spending to GDP (gross domestic product) ratio, is the variable through which these effects are empirically traced. In this article, an alternative measure that captures the burden on the economy and society from allocating resources to the defense sector is used—the Global Militarization Index (GMI), constructed by the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC). The empirical investigation covers a total of 116 countries and spans the period 1995–2019. The results reported herein do not reveal any systematic and statistically significant relation between a country’s militarization levels and two main macroeconomic variables (growth rate of GDP and gross fixed capital formation as a share of GDP).