The rising unit cost of defence equipment — The reasons and the results

This paper constructs a conceptual model for the selection of defence equipment providing best value for money. It then shows how the unit cost of the chosen equipment increases between one generation of equipment and its successor because of developments in the perceived threat, the available technology and industrial productivity, and demonstrates that unit cost increases can arise from a logical and rational procurement policy and are not necessarily caused by technological chimeras and military vainglory. The resulting persistent rise in unit cost is unlikely to be significantly slowed by any of the counter‐measures yet proposed.

The paper then discusses the policies which nations have adopted to accommodate past increases in unit cost, and the options which confront any nation at the point when it can no longer afford to re‐equip a particular element of its armed forces.     

The Long-run Causal Relationship Between Military Expenditure and Economic Growth in China: Revisited

This paper re-examines the long-run causal relationship between military expenditure and economic growth in China over the period 1952–2010. An empirical econometric analysis based on a Barro-style growth model is conducted. By employing the Bartlett corrected trace test, which provides better approximations of the finite sample distribution to determine the rank of cointegration, the results support the existence of a single long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the cumulated shocks of military expenditure primarily originate from different components of shocks that relate to economic development rather than the other way round.     

The Impact of Military Spending on Economic Growth: The Case of North Cyprus

The present study aims at investigating the causal relationship between defence expenditures and economic growth in the case of North Cyprus using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and Granger causality tests for the period from 1977 to 2007. The results suggest that the variables in question are in a long-run equilibrium relationship and that there exists a strong, positive unidirectional causality running from defence expenditures to economic growth.     

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.     

DOES DEFENCE SPENDING STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN INDIA? A REVISIT

This study reinvestigates the effect of defence spending on economic growth using Zivot and Andrews and Lee and Strazicich, structural unit root tests and the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration in augmented version of Keynesian model for India. Study confirmed long run relationship among variables studied show that economic growth is positively affected by defence spending (also negative impact after a threshold point), investment and trade openness while negatively by interest rate. Granger causality analysis revealed bidirectional causal relationship between defence spending and economic growth as probed by variance decomposition approach.     

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.     

Country survey XII: South Africa

This article examines the relationship between defence expenditure and economic performance in South Africa, both prior to and after that country's first fully democratic election in 1994. Prior to 1994 defence expenditure decisions were largely dominated by non‐economic factors; since then defence spending has declined in reaction to, inter alia, the need to address a number of socio‐economic inequities.

After 1975 in particular, military industrialisation in South Africa placed a disproportionately high burden on the country's industrial resources and natural economic and technical capabilities. However, although this suggests that the opportunity cost of domestic arms production has been fairly high, the country's poor economic and development performance since the mid‐1970s is a function of underlying structural deficiencies and institutional constraints rather than the consequence of inordinately high defence spending levels.     

The causal nexus between military spending and unemployment in the G7: a bootstrap panel causality test

We revisit the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in the G7 countries applying a bootstrap panel causality analysis that accounts for both cross-sectional dependence and for heterogeneity across countries. Using per capita real GDP as a controlled variable, we found a unidirectional causality running from military spending to unemployment for Canada, Japan, and the US, one-way causality running from unemployment to military spending for France and Germany, and bidirectional causality for Italy and the UK. The empirical evidence does not seem to provide consistent results regarding the causal relationship between military spending and unemployment in G7 countries.     

吊放声纳主动工作模式探测域建模与仿真

水声环境对于吊放声纳搜潜效果影响很大,以往的水声环境对吊声探测影响建模尚未涉及吊声立体探测域,不能为吊声搜潜战术研究提供有效支撑。在对声传播损失、海洋环境噪声和混响进行深入分析和建模的基础上,根据吊声探测机理建立了主动探测概率模型,仿真分析了吊声主动探测概率的三维空间分布,并提出了吊声搜潜战术应以三维非连续探测域为基础,结合战法实验等新手段进行不确定性研究的建议。     

装甲车辆运动姿态实时仿真系统设计与实现

系统基于计算机仿真技术构建装甲车辆运动时的虚拟战场环境,利用自动控制技术和虚拟现实技术实现对装甲车辆运动姿态的实时仿真,采用同步建模和实时动态仿真技术实现机电系统与视景的同步仿真,从而保证了平台振动位置与由视景运动产生的位置变化一致.通过软、硬件互补的优化设计,提高了系统的抗干扰能力,实现了高仿真度、高质量的仿真通用平台的研制.该系统模型结构完整,参数选取精细,量化科学,三维图形实时性好,模拟程度逼真,工作可靠,维护方便,通用性强.