Transnational terrorism as a spillover of domestic disputes in other countries

This paper models transnational terrorism as a three‐way strategic interaction involving a government that faces armed opposition at home, which may spill over in the form of acts of terrorism by the state's opponents against the government's external sponsor. The external sponsor also utilises deterrence against potential terrorists, which only lowers terrorism if terrorists are not intrinsically motivated by a deep‐seated sense of humiliation. The model highlights the importance of intrinsic motivation. A rise in the external power's preference for deterrence against terrorism may backfire in these circumstances. Increases in the government's military efficiency against the rebels, who are also terrorists against the government's sponsor, raises overall levels of violence.     

MILITARY SPENDING AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SOUTH ASIA: COMMENT AND RECONSIDERATION

In a recent paper in this journal, Wijewerra and Webb study the connection between military spending and gross domestic product (GDP) in a group of five South Asian countries, finding a small but statistically significant positive relationship between military spending and GDP. This paper reviews their approach and proposes an alternative which tries to deal with the problems of omitted variables and variable construction. It finds, in contrast, that a higher share of military spending in GDP is associated with lower growth of GDP per capita.     

BUTTER,GUNS AND ICE‐CREAM THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM SUB‐SAHARAN AFRICA

This paper is intended to complement the existing literature on civil wars. First, it presents a simple theoretical model of conflict that defines a two‐sector economy. In a contested sector, two agents struggle to appropriate the maximum possible fraction of a contestable output. In an uncontested sector, they hold secure property rights over the production of some goods. Agents split their resource endowment between ‘butter’, ‘guns’ and ‘ice‐cream’. Following the theoretical insights the empirical analysis focuses on the relationship between civil wars and different sectors of the economy. In particular, a panel probit specification shows that the incidence of a civil war decreases in the size of manufacturing sector.     

Defense Burden and the Effect of Democracy: Evidence from a Spatial Panel Analysis

ABSTRACT

Do democracies spend less on national defense? This paper provides new evidence of the effect of democracy on defense burden based on a Spatial Durbin Model with panel data for 98 countries for the years 1992–2008. While democracy measured by means of an index variable covering the entire range from perfect democracy to perfect autocracy turns out to be insignificant, dummy variables indicating transition to higher levels of democracy reveal a statistically highly significant negative effect of democracy on a country’s defense burden. Allowing for country-specific effects reveals heterogeneity in the effect of democracy across countries. Apart from the effect of democracy, the estimation results indicate strong spatial dependence of military burdens across countries. Moreover, they provide statistical evidence for a peace dividend, for substitution effects in defense spending and for a negative effect on the military burden for countries when they exhibit a trade surplus instead of a trade deficit.     

Emotions,Risk Perceptions and Precautionary Actions of Citizens During a Military Operation Using a New Defence Technology: The Israeli Case of the Iron Dome

Abstract

The current field study used unique data collected in Israel in July 2014, during a military operation that the Israel Defence Forces (I.D.F.) conducted in the Gaza Strip, in reaction to the thousands of missiles launched from there into Israel. During this operation, the new Iron Dome anti-missile defence system was used to protect Israelis exposed to missile attacks. The study examined factors that correlate with decisions to comply with I.D.F. defence instructions regarding behaviour during missile attacks. In addition, the study examined the relationship between attitudes towards the Iron Dome technology and emotions, risk perceptions, and the decision to comply with I.D.F. defence instructions. The results indicate that stronger positive opinions towards Iron Dome were correlated with lower levels of fear and anger, and beliefs that participant’s chances of being injured by a missile were lower than they had been during previous military operation. In addition, better compliance with I.D.F. defence instructions correlated with being more fearful, angrier at Hamas, living closer to Gaza Strip, and having more positive opinions about Iron Dome. The findings also indicate gender differences with respect to factors correlated with risk perceptions, opinions regarding Iron Dome, and precautionary actions during attacks.     

A Note on the Effect of Terrorism on Economic Sentiment

This study documents that unforeseen events like terrorist attacks can be linked to the formation of Economic Sentiment after controlling for sentiment’s economic drivers. By utilizing dynamic panel techniques, the Economic Sentiment Indicator, as well as one of its constituents Consumer Sentiment, for a pan-European panel of 27 countries appear to be negatively influenced by terrorism activity. Moreover, these negative effects are significant only in the post-9/11 era.     

Allies with Benefits: US Effect on European Demand for Military Expenditures

This paper examines the security relationship between the US and Europe, focusing on potential spillin effects of US military expenditures on European demand for military expenditures during the early twenty-first century. The goal is to test whether or not European states view US expenditures as a complement or as a substitute to their own military expenditures. Past work in this area has found mixed results concerning the effect of US military expenditures, but focus strictly on the spillins within a formal alliance, specifically NATO, and use a time series dominated by Cold War dynamics. This study differentiates itself by accounting for both US total military expenditures and its regional expenditures through incorporation of US military base and personnel deployments across Europe. Additionally, this paper uses government revenue in its estimation to mitigate potential endogeneity. Findings using Arellano–Bond dynamic panel analysis suggest that there is a strong probability of substitution among European states.     

马氏综合权重距离判别法在中小型滑坡灾害评估中的应用

我国西南地区滑坡灾害具有点多面广、规模小、危害大的特点,群测群防是目前中小型滑坡灾害最为有效的预防手段。针对这种现状,为进一步完善群测群防体系,在马氏距离判别法和加权马氏距离判别法的基础上对权重值进行了修正改进,提出了一种新的判别分析方法——马氏综合权重距离判别法。该方法不仅保留了加权马氏距离判别中区分每一个指标重要性差异的优势,并且结合德尔菲法对权重值进一步修正,弥补了原来加权马氏距离法在判别过程中距离函数出现负值的不足。从本质上来说,这种方法是把由样本驱动的权重值和实际工程经验的权重值相结合,使权重值的取值更加符合实际。以该方法为基础,在一定的历史资料背景下,从滑坡致灾因素和孕灾因素考虑,选取适当的判别因子,建立判别模型,对未知潜在滑坡灾害进行判别归类,并且与马氏距离判别法和Fisher判别法比较。研究发现,马氏综合权重距离判别法具有更高的可靠度和判别精度,适于在群测群防体系中进一步推广使用。     

灰色模糊物元分析的要地防空威胁评估

结合要地防空作战的特点,分析了影响目标威胁评估的因素.针对指标信息的不确定性,将模糊物元分析与灰色系统理论相结合,并运用AHP法和信息熵法进行组合赋权,建立了基于组合赋权的灰色模糊物元分析的要地防空威胁评估模型.在对来袭目标进行威胁评估时,将目标的各个特征作为物元的事物,以其各项评价指标及模糊灰量值构造复合模糊灰元.通过计算与标准模糊灰元之间的关联度,实现对空袭目标的威胁评估与排序.实例分析表明该方法可靠有效.     

导频设计的MIMO-OFDM改进信道估计算法

为提高系统的传输效率并改善信道估计的性能,提出了一种结合优化导频设计的分段带阻滤波算法.采用优化的导频设计,该算法在少量增加计算复杂度的基础上,能够进一步提高信道估计的性能,与实际中广泛应用的经典时域滤波算法相比,具有更高的估计精度.仿真结果证明该算法适用于不同的信道环境,尤其在低信噪比的条件下,该算法能够明显降低信道估计的MSE.