Military Expenditures,Income Inequality,Welfare and Political Regimes: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

The goal of this paper is to investigate the relationship between type of welfare regimes and military expenditures. There is a sizeable empirical literature on the development of the welfare state and on the typology of the welfare regimes. There appear to be, however, no empirical studies that examine welfare regimes with special attention to military spending. This study aims at providing a comprehensive analysis on the topic by considering several different welfare regime typologies. To do so, we use dynamic panel data analysis for 37 countries for the period of 1988–2003 by considering a wide range of control variables such as inequality measures, number of terrorist events, and size of the armed forces. We also replicate the same analyses for the political regimes. Our findings, in line with the literature, show that there is a positive relationship between income inequality and share of military expenditures in the central government budget, and that the number of terrorist events is a significant factor that affects both the level of military expenditure and inequality. Also, the paper reveals a significant negative relationship between social democratic welfare regimes and military expenditures.     

Social capital and terrorism

Many studies of terrorism explain the use of violence against civilians with political or economic forces, often relegating social variables to the margins. Social factors, specifically societal-level social capital, play a far more important role in explaining patterns of terrorist activity than previously recognized. Social capital can exert pressures that act as both restraint and catalyst for terrorism, making explicit exposition of these differential effects critical. Analysis shows that higher stocks of social capital positively correlate with the number of terrorist groups, but the average attack activity of those groups increase as measures of social capital decline. The complex relationship makes it difficult to draw simple policy implications, but it does offer insight into the role that social dynamics play in terrorist activity.     

Domestic political and external security determinants of the demand for greek military expenditure

By European Union and NATO standards, Greece consistently allocates substantial human and material resources to defence. The Greek defence burden (i.e. military expenditure as a share of GDP) has invariably been appreciably higher than the EU and NATO averages. The paper applies an autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) to present cointegrated estimates of the demand function for Greek military expenditure, in which domestic political factors and external security determinants are incorporated. Our empirical findings suggest that Greek defence spending over the period 1960-1998 has been influenced by both external security concerns, namely Turkey, as well as changes in the domestic political scene.     

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AND CULTURE

We address empirically the question of why international economic sanctions are, or are not, chosen as instruments of foreign policy and the question of what determines their success. We hypothesize that cultural linkages between nations are an important factor in explaining both instrument choice and conflict outcomes. Countries that share significant cultural attributes are found to be less likely to apply economic sanctions against one another than countries lacking such cultural ties. However, it is precisely in the case of culturally similar sender and target nations that sanctions are most likely to succeed.     

Economic reconstruction amidst conflict: Insights from Afghanistan and Iraq

Economic reconstruction typically takes place after the end of war. Yet recently, economic reconstruction has been viewed as a means to ‘win hearts and minds’ during ongoing conflict. Drawing on a variety of reconstruction experiences from Afghanistan and Iraq, we identify four ‘reconstruction traps’ that result from the incentives and constraints faced by actors involved in economic reconstruction during ongoing conflict. These traps include: 1. the credible commitment trap, 2. the knowledge trap, 3. the political economy trap, and 4. the bureaucracy trap. Avoiding these traps is critical for successful economic reconstruction; and we discuss potential strategies for doing so.     

SECURITY BRIEF

Using crime review figures for four randomly selected states in Nigeria, this study examines cases of kidnapping and its implications for the national economy. The findings reveal that kidnapping is consistently on the increase in Nigeria and is not evenly spread across regions. It is shown that 15 cases were recorded in 2005 and 43 cases in 2008. In 2009, 138 cases were officially recorded, of which 22% and 76% occurred in Rivers and Edo states respectively. Findings further showed that modern kidnapping in Nigeria is triggered by resource control disputes directed both at oil expatriate workers and at prominent citizens, politicians and members of their families. The crisis, which came to the fore in 2005, has forced oil production shutdowns of up to 800 000 barrels per day. The study concludes that kidnapping is becoming a serious crime in Nigeria with significant negative implications for foreign investment, national foreign exchange earnings, and revenue generation.     

The impact of political instability on the economic growth of ECOWAS member countries

This study contributes to the literature on political instability and economic growth by specifically investigating the impact of political instability on the economic growth of member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). West Africa is regarded as the riskiest sub-region within the African continent. To achieve this objective, this study employed panel data techniques (fixed effects and generalised method of moments) on a sample of 15 ECOWAS member countries for the period 2005–2012. The findings from the analyses showed that terrorism, poor governance, social unrest, youth unemployment, death rate and natural resource rent have negative relationships with economic growth. The findings and policy implications deduced from this study could not have been any timelier considering the recent escalation of instability in West African countries and their fragile growth prospects.     

浅析经济原则在网络语言中的应用

随着网络技术的发展,网络语言作为一种新的语言媒体和社会方言,越来越得到人们的重视。在不同的学术领域,专家对网络语言作出不同的诠释和研究。主要从构词、句法、非语言符号三个角度来分析经济原则在网络语言中的普遍使用,并从聊天室中收集、归纳、分析相关语料来证明经济原则的存在,及在网络空间中普遍使用的原因。对网络语言的深入研究,将更有助于人们了解语言在以高科技为背景条件下发展趋势。当网络语言冲击传统语言时,要树立正确的态度面对语言的发展。     

析替代国制度的不公平性及对策

替代国制度是西方国家反倾销法中确定“非市场经济国家”出口产品正常价值所使用的方法,这种方法完全不考虑出口国产品的成本优势。因此,以这种方法确定出口产品的正常价值是非常不合理的,致使中国在反倾销诉讼中处于极为不利的地位。替代国制度的产生及根源,替代国制度对中国的损害及不公平性,中国应采取的对策。     

Revenue management under randomly evolving economic conditions

We consider a dynamic pricing model in which the instantaneous rate of the demand arrival process is dependent on not only the current price charged by the concerned firm, but also the present state of the world. While reflecting the current economic condition, the state evolves in a Markovian fashion. This model represents the real‐life situation in which the sales season is relatively long compared to the fast pace at which the outside environment changes. We establish the value of being better informed on the state of the world. When reasonable monotonicity conditions are met, we show that better present economic conditions will lead to higher prices. Our computational study is partially calibrated with real data. It demonstrates that the benefit of heeding varying economic conditions is on par with the value of embracing randomness in the demand process. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 66:73–89,2019