Estimating non‐transparent military expenditures: The case of china (PRC)∗

Data limitations arising from non‐transparency in military expenditure reporting impose significant constraints on economists studying country and comparative developments in this field. This article focuses on the case of China. It reviews the recent literature on China's military expenditure, examines the variance in published estimates, and identifies three factors which help explain the variance: budgetary falsification; non‐budgeted PLA revenue; and the US dollar purchasing‐power parity of the yuan. Conclusions emphasize important policy implications of such variance and suggest a more active role for defence economists in a field of research generating considerable attention from international relations scholars.     

军用无线电的发展方向——软件无线电

在讨论无线电系统的发展以及军用无线电现状的基础上,提出了利用软件无线电解决现存主要问题的方法.详细分析了软件无线电的基本概念、原理和典型软件电台的基本结构,并介绍了由美国空军负责研制的Speakeasy计划.     

THE EFFECTS OF THE WORLD DEFENSE INDUSTRY AND US MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL ON THE ISRAELI DEFENSE INDUSTRY: A DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCTS MODEL

This paper models the interactions between the defense industry market structure and the defense needs of Israel, the USA and Western Europe, which produce several heterogeneous defense goods. The model specifies that the defense industries of the US and Europe are ‘large’ while that of Israel is ‘small’. The US military aid to Israel is also an integral part of the model. The results show that net defense costs of Israel are minimal when the number of its defense firms is one. The model predicts that an increase in US military aid reduces Israel’s government expenditure, its defense industry’s profits and its net defense costs.     

AN ENDOGENOUS GROWTH MODEL OF CAPITAL AND ARMS ACCUMULATION

This paper attempts to examine the effect of an anticipated foreign military threat on the steady‐state growth rate and the transitional behavior of the economy. The modeling strategy follows the Sandler and Hartley (1995 Sandler, T. and Hartley, K. 1995. The Economics of Defense, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar]) and Dunne et al. (2005 Dunne, J.P., Smith, R.P. and Willenbockel, D. 2005. Models of military expenditure and growth: a critical review. Defence and Peace Economics, 16: 449–461. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) viewpoints to emphasize the role of national defense in affecting growth from the perspective of both the demand and the supply sides. We thus combine the public capital version of endogenous growth with a framework of competitive arms accumulation. It is found that the key factor determining the steady state and the transitional effects of a rise in the foreign military threat on the home weapon–capital ratio, the consumption–capital ratio, and the rate of economic growth, is the degree of relative risk aversion.     

Do Military Expenditures Crowd-out Health Expenditures? Evidence from around the World, 2000–2013

Abstract

The paper examines the relationship between health and military expenditures using pooled cross-sectional (197 countries) and time series (2000–2013) data. Simultaneous equation models were employed to estimate the relationship between an array of public sector expenditures in order to address potential endogeneity. Our empirical findings strongly support the crowding-out hypothesis whereby increased military expenditures reduce the capacity of government to direct expenditures to health expenditures. These findings were robust to alternative specifications explored in the sensitivity analyses. Compared with upper-middle-income countries, the crowding-out effect became more pronounced among lower-middle-income countries. Consequently, this study shows that increased military expenditures negatively impacts health expenditures, and therefore poses as an important risk factor for population health and individual well-being. Moreover, it is the poorest of nations that are most sensitive to the negative effects of increased military expenditures.     

From combat to non-combat action

This paper examines the rationale and centrality of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in humanitarian assistance operations in Sudan, asking why PMSCs are involved in humanitarian assistance operations in Sudan and what the principles underlying their activities are. To answer this question, the paper draws attention to the link between humanitarian crises and PMSC interventions. Where there is no meaningful alternative intervention, undergirded by humanitarian concerns that are also profit driven, PMSCs come in to provide the needed services. The protracted and complicated internal armed conflicts in Sudan, which have lasted for over two decades, have produced as many as 4,8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) – the single largest number in the world. The kind of humanitarian assistance operations provided by PMSCs in Sudan have become critical to the provision of much-needed services which were inadequately provided by governmental authorities at both unilateral and multilateral levels. This paper argues that the humanitarian crises in Sudan created a regime that permits humanitarian assistance operations by both state and non-state actors.     

Force deployment and the production of security: Why is the united states in NATO?

Standard economic concepts of production and cost minimization subject to a production constraint are used to derive the conditions of optimal deployment of home and forward military forces for the production of home security. United States' participation in the NATO alliance is then analyzed in the context of a two‐ally (U.S. and Western Europe) optimal force deployment model of NATO. Next, U.S. force‐basing policy is adduced as an enforcement mechanism for the “transatlantic contract.” Lastly, statistical evidence on burden sharing within Western Europe, and the effectiveness of the U.S. contract enforcement policy, is presented.     

一种基于变权的军事决策模型

根据军队信息化建设所需全面型和专长型军事人才的特点,需要采取一定的方法选拔不同岗位所需的人才.该文试图利用变权理论,采取惩罚型状态变权向量和激励型状态变权向量,完成因素之间权重的转移,进而实现因素之间的均衡或突出某些因素的作用,由此建立了一个不同岗位需求的军事人才选优的综合决策模型.     

面向决策的一体化建模方法及其在兵力筹划中的应用

在对军事决策问题的主要特点进行分析的基础上,提出从军事概念模型到数学模型再到定性推理模型的一体化建模思想.以空军航空兵遂行直接航空火力支援任务为想定背景,根据EATI模板,利用基于UML的Rose工具依次对想定任务的实体、任务、交互等进行分析;对于兵力筹划中的结构化问题建立了机会约束多目标规划数学模型;对于非结构化问题则构造了推理机,推理机体现了定量与定性相结合的决策分析思想.最后,以一个实例验证文章思路的可行性.     

Applying a bootstrap approach for setting reorder points in military supply systems

This paper develops and applies a nonparametric bootstrap methodology for setting inventory reorder points and a simple inequality for identifying existing reorder points that are unreasonably high. We demonstrate that an empirically based bootstrap method is both feasible and calculable for large inventories by applying it to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force General Account, an inventory consisting of $20–30 million of stock for 10–20,000 different types of items. Further, we show that the bootstrap methodology works significantly better than the existing methodology based on mean days of supply. In fact, we demonstrate performance equivalent to the existing system with a reduced inventory at one‐half to one‐third the cost; conversely, we demonstrate significant improvement in fill rates and other inventory performance measures for an inventory of the same cost. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 47: 459–478, 2000