Does Military Spending Explode External Debt in Pakistan?

This paper investigates the effect of military spending on external debt in case of Pakistan for the period of 1973–2009. For this purpose, the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration is used to examine cointegration among the variables. The ADF, P-P, and ADF-GLS unit root tests are applied to test the integrating order of the variables. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and error correction method regressions are used to investigate the marginal impact of military spending on external debt in the long and short run. Our findings indicate the existence of cointegration that confirms the presence of a long-run relationship among military spending, external debt, economic growth, and investment. Further, our results reveal that a rise in military spending increases the stock of external debt; an increase in investment also increases external debt; however, there is an inverse effect of economic growth on external debt. An implication of the findings reported herein is that there is a need to formulate a comprehensive economic policy for curtailing external debt in case of Pakistan.     

FIGHTING TERRORISM: ARE MILITARY MEASURES EFFECTIVE? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY

The present article aims at investigating the causal relationship between defense spending and terrorism in Turkey using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure and Granger‐causality analysis. The findings reveal that there exists a unidirectional causality running form terrorist attacks to defense spending as expected, but not vice versa. In the light of this finding it can be inferred that military anti‐terrorism measures alone are not sufficient to prevent terrorism.     

Jihad Against Palestinians? The Herostratos Syndrome and the Paradox of Targeting European Jews

Abstract

This paper addresses the waves of mass killings recently perpetrated by individuals with a weak or nonexistent ideological motivation, whose acts either appear to contradict their purported political cause or are admittedly driven by a quest for notoriety. Examples range from killers who have been waging jihad against European Jews to unattached mass killers such as the Germanwings pilot to the perpetrators of mass school shootings in America and worldwide. We argue that these phenomena can be understood as instances of the Herostratos syndrome, which has been known for thousands of years as characterizing the behavior of people who seek to survive in the collective memory by excelling in their infamous acts. We provide a model of hybrid killers which accommodates the Herostratic motive alongside a political motive and characterize a well-behaved Nash equilibrium where Herostratic killers are competing with one another with a view to make a name for themselves in infamy. The policy implications point towards reducing the publicity the killers enjoy, thus frustrating their quest for notoriety.     

Compulsory Military Service and Future Earnings: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Using Israeli census data, and the random assignment of Arab males to military service, this study provides new evidence on the long-term effects of military service on the earnings of veterans. Among Druze men, we find an economically and statistically significant positive effect of 23% on their wages. The unskilled experience a slightly higher premium. The positive effects are large and intensify over time. Skill enhancement and usual human capital accumulation do not explain the positive effect of military service. Networking during service is proposed as a likely explanation.     

Correlates of Perceived Insecurity: Evidence from Pakistan

This study explores the correlates of perceived insecurity among the households in Pakistan. For this purpose, data from the third round of Pakistan Panel Household Survey are merged with terrorist incidents taken from Global Terrorism Database. The results illustrate that objective risk, signified by violence in the district of residence, and victimization play an important role in the formation of perceived insecurity. Moreover, males and residents of rural areas feel more insecure than females and urban residents, respectively. Furthermore, spatial variation in violence indicates that terrorist attacks in the first-order contiguous districts (i.e. the immediate neighbors) are also associated with subjective insecurity. These are crucial findings because behavioral changes, such as perceived insecurity, could force the households to make suboptimal investment decisions. More importantly, since changes in behavioral parameters may be highly persistent, this study cautions that violence in Pakistan may have potentially long-term impacts on social welfare.