Includes bibliographical references / This dissertation is a collection of studies on the economics of peace and security. Chapter one introduces the roles military spending and conic play in affecting economic growth, while also considering the causes of civil conflict. Chapter two investigates the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth, considering group heterogeneity and non-linearity. Using an exogenous growth model and dynamic panel approach, the results suggest military burden to have a negative effect on growth. Breaking the overall panel down into various sub-samples shows estimates that are remark-ably consistent with the full panel. These results provide strong support for the argument that military spending has an adverse effect on growth. There are, however, some intriguing results suggesting that for certain types of countries military burden has no negative growth effect. Chapter three deals with the transnational spatial spillover effects of conflict on neighbouring countries. It moves beyond using geographical dis-tance as a spillover measurement and allows for economic and political distances. The initial empirical results suggest that conflict has a strong negative spillover effect on directly contiguous countries growth, but no significant impacts were observed for non-contiguous countries. When economic and political factors are considered, this result remains, but the spillover effect is smaller. While the impact of conflict remains devastating, it is important to take other factors into account as studies using only geographical distance may be overestimating the impact on neighbours. The fourth chapter examines the determinants of civil war, using a zero-inflated modelling approach to deal with excess zeroes in the dependent variable. Traditional probit and logit models have limited capacity in dealing with this issue and can create misleading results, which is illustrated through replicating published work. A general greed-grievance model is then estimated giving further support to using zero-inflated models. While the standard probit models tend to emphasise opportunity variables, consistent in other studies, the zero inflated model gives supports both opportunity and grievance variables. In particular, ethnicity, democracy and inequality are found to play a significant role in civil war prevalence. Finally, chapter five summarises the findings of the dissertation, providing some policy recommendations, concluding remarks and discusses future research opportunities.

Thesis (M.B.A.)—Boston University.

Europeans have been spending increasingly less on defense. This trend is puzzling on two accounts. Empirically, 30% of defense spending cuts correlated with a net increase in military capacity, contradicting conventional predictions of military degradation under budgetary pressures. Theoretically, it is unclear why cuts happen and whether conscious policy choices can translate spending cuts to favorable military capacity outcomes. Is the decline in defense spending a strategic choice to demilitarize, or is it intentionally managed to improve military capacity? I evaluate three conditions under which reductions in military expenditures can lead to favorable outcomes in military capacity: defense reform, defense collaboration and buck-passing. I investigate 30 defense spending cut periods (DSCP’s) in the 27 European states between 2000 and 2012. This group of states presents a hard case for my argument: decline in European military resources is most-likely intentional. Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis, I group DSCP’s by military capacity outcomes. I then evaluate presence of the three mechanisms by operationalizing necessary but insufficient conditions, and determine whether these potential explanations are sufficient by process-tracing select case studies. I find that defense reform presents the most compelling, collective collaboration less compelling and buck-passing least compelling explanation of a potentially non-detrimental relationship between DSCP’s and military capacity. Under declining defense spending, governments routinely chose to produce savings by eliminating redundancies, consolidating structures, and reinvested savings in operational readiness and quality of military forces. States increased defense collaboration in 47.3% of the DSCP’s, but initiatives still appear divorced from affecting robust military improvements at the national level. Under declining defense spending, buck-passing increased only modestly (8%-13%), with ongoing deployments supporting continued investment in the military. These findings imply that defense spending decline does not mean a European choice to demilitarize, but a choice to reform, sometimes in tandem with defense collaboration or buck-passing.

Military spending briefly dipped in the early 1990s only to rebound by the end of the 20th century, yet policymakers and academics alike predicted a peace dividend if the cold war should end. What happened to this peace dividend? How do some countries actualize a peace dividend in a world that seems not to encourage one? Typically military spending is analyzed through lenses focusing on international politics, bureaucratic process, or domestic political economy. I argue that these three lenses have failed to account for some of the reasons military spending remains high in the post-cold war era. Utilizing sociological institutionalism and world models, I examine how the rules of the Washington consensus via the neo-liberal economic agenda and the national security exception promote high levels of military spending that the three main theories fail to recognize. This study particularly delves into the roles of states and transnational corporations in terms of competitiveness in the global political economy and privileges allotted to the military industry. My tests rely on fuzzy-set comparative qualitative analysis (fsQCA) as an innovative means for looking at necessary conditions as well as sufficient conjunctural causation through which countries can achieve a peace dividend in the post-cold war era.

Les dépenses militaires constituent un phénomène économique important puisque 1630 milliards de dollars sont affectés au secteur de la défense en 2010 au niveau mondial. Les économistes se sont alors intéressés aux conséquences économiques de telles dépenses. Pourtant depuis près de 40 ans, force est de constater qu'aucun consensus n'émerge de cette littérature. Une telle absence se traduit par des difficultés pour formuler des conclusions de politique économique adaptée. L'objet de cette thèse est alors de déterminer quelles pourraient être les causes de la diversité des résultats de la littérature passée. Nous proposons alors deux pistes expliquant ce phénomène: d'une part une diversité de modélisations ayant des hypothèses diamétralement opposées quant à l'impact de la défense sur la croissance et d'autre part l'existence de non-linéarité, de nature à modifier cet impact pour un même modèle.La thèse se compose alors de quatre chapitres. Dans le chapitre un, nous proposons une revue de littérature permettant de mettre en exergue les régularités, en termes de résultats, associées à chaque modèle théorique. Le chapitre deux constitue alors une vérification empirique, pour un échantillon donné de pays de l'OCDE, de la contingence des conclusions quant à l'utilisation de différentes modélisations. Notre stratégie empirique permet de considérer les modèles comme complémentaires plutôt qu'en concurrence. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous étudions les phénomènes de non-linéarité au travers d'une démarche et d'une méthode empirique originales. Nous montrons que la régression non-linéaire est préférable à la régression linéaire et qu'elle conduit à caractériser un effet asymétrique de la défense sur la croissance. Le dernier chapitre a pour but d'étudier plus précisément le cas de la France afin de confirmer, en termes de politique économique, la stratégie développée dans les chapitres précédents. / Military spending constitutes an important economic phenomenon because in 2010, 1630b dollar are affected to the defense sector all around the world. Economists are interested in the economic consequences of such spending. However, since 40 years, one has to note that there is no consensus from this literature. This absence leads to difficulties to formulate relevant economic policy conclusions. The aim of this thesis is to determine what are the causes of the diversity of results in the past literature. Two ways are then considered: on the one hand, a diversity of models with hypothesis diametrically opposed concerning the impact of the defense sector on economic growth and on the other hand, non-linear behavior which may modify this impact for a same model.This dissertation contains four chapters. In the first one, we detail a literature review in order to draw the principal regularities in terms of results for each theoretical model. The chapter two constitutes an empirical verification of the contingency of results from different models, for a sample of OECD countries. Our empirical strategy leads to consider the complementary rather than the competition between models. In the third chapter, we examine the non-linear phenomenon with original steps and empirical method. We show that non-linear regression outperforms linear regression and characterizes asymmetric effects of the military spending on growth. The last chapter aims to analyze the case of France in order to confirm the usefulness of the strategy developed in past chapters for raising economic policy recommendations.

This thesis deals with the influence of foreign policy of Ronald Reagan on his budget policy. The foreign policy is studied in relation to the USSR. First stage of this thesis is devoted to economic development in the USA before Ronald Reagan era with focusing on 1970's. There are also crucial aspects, which affected economic development within the Ronald Reagan era and his decisions. The goal of main part of the thesis is an analysis of impacts of foreign policy on the federal dept in the USA in 1980's with focusing on the relationship between USA a USSR. The thesis analyzes the impact of military spending and Strategic Defense Initiative on the growing federal dept as a consequence of the relationship between USA and USSR. In this stage of the thesis is descriped Reagan's budget program as well as the reasons why the program was unsuccessful. At the end of the thesis is emphasized the influence of Ronald Reagan on the dissolution of the USSR and summarizes the knowledges about the relationship between the budget and foreign policy in the USA in 1980's.

This article examines the often studied guns vs. butter tradeoff within the context of federal military spending and means-tested social welfare spending in an effort to focus academic attention on the impact of military expenditure on America’s poorest populations. Using OLS regression on federal budgetary data ranging from 1962 to 2020, I test for a tradeoff between military spending as a proportion of the discretionary budget and means-tested welfare spending as a proportion of the mandatory budget. I also include several covariates that previous literature has shown to be relevant to a potential tradeoff — including war status, poverty rate, unemployment rate, economic growth, inequality, and legislator ideology — to determine whether they play a mediating role between military and means-tested welfare spending. I also conduct a qualitative analysis of platforms published by the Democratic and Republican parties during select election years between 1940 and 2020 in order to find a causal mechanism for a budgetary tradeoff. These analyses conclude that there is significant statistical evidence of a tradeoff between these two spending categories, and that party attitudes about who/what is more deserving of federal funding — which are consistently expressed by each party throughout the 80-year period — provide a causal mechanism for such a tradeoff. These attitudes, which are constructed through the priorities expressed in platforms over time, cause legislators to provide funding to groups (either the military or the American poor) that they find deserving, and subtract funding from those they find undeserving. In finding that military expenditure directly undermines life-saving assistance, this article encourages greater study of how seemingly unrelated budgetary decisions (especially those relating to national defense) may play an active role in America’s worsening inequality crisis.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / David Stone / This manuscript reveals the primary causes of Habsburg defeat both in 1866 and in 1914-1918. The choice of offensive strategy and tactics against an enemy possessing superior weaponry in the Austro-Prussian War and opponents with superior numbers and weapons in the First World War resulted in catastrophe. The inferiority of the Habsburg forces in both wars stemmed from imprudent spending decisions during peacetime rather than conservatism or parliamentary stinginess. The desire to restore the sunken prestige of Austria-Hungary and prove Habsburg great power status drove the military to waste money on an expensive fleet and choose offensive tactics to win great victories. This study shows the civil-military interaction in regard to funding and procurement decisions as well as the deep intellectual debates within the army, which refute the idea that the Habsburg military remained opposed to technology or progress.

Analyzing the effect of military expenditure on economic growth has been an essential task for U.S economists. This thesis analyzed macroeconomic components for the last 70 years by estimating the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model and vector autoregressive model. To interpret the empirical analysis, historical analysis of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Wars in the Middle East, was made. One found the negative effect of military spending during wartime on the economic growth of the United States. This thesis suggests that the policymakers and military commanders should focus on shortening the state of war to minimize economic damage to the United States. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Previous research has shown that Taiwan's military spending is affected either by China's military buildup or the US's military pipeline. This study investigates whether it is also true an ongoing US-China relationship has dynamic effects. Three major findings are obtained from the statistical analyses. First and foremost, the level of US-China conflict has a contemporaneous positive effect on Taiwan's military spending. Second, the analyses also indicate that the volatility of US-China relations has negative effects on Taiwan's military spending. This finding suggests that instability in US-China relations will prompt Taiwan to decrease its military spending due to a higher amount of perceived security on the one hand, and Taiwan wants to avoid further provoking China on the other. Third, analyses indicate that an error correction model fares better than a simple budgetary incremental model in explaining the re-equilibrating effects of GNP growth on Taiwan's military spending. Overall, the results demonstrate the interplay of domestic and international constraints and may help to predict what will be the expected military spending when Taiwan's economy changes. I suggest that Taiwan's military spending is likely to be influenced by US-China relations as well as by foreign investment and domestic economic constraints as long as the United States policy toward the Taiwan problem remains unchanged.