A Nonlinear Model of Military Expenditure Convergence: Evidence From Estar Nonlinear Unit Root Test

The paper builds a model to empirically test military expenditure convergence in a nonlinear set up. We assert that country A chooses a military strategy of catching up with the military expenditure of its rivals, subject to public spending constraints on public investments, including health and education, leading to decrease in long-term economic welfare. This implies nonlinear convergence path: only when the military expenditure gap between countries reaches the threshold level, will it provide incentives to catch up with rival’s military expenditures. We test this nonlinear catching up hypothesis for 37 countries spanning from 1988 to 2012. Results from individual nonlinear cross-sectionally augmented Dickey–Fuller (NCADF) regression indicate that 53% of countries converge to world’s average military expenditure: where 39% of countries converge to Germany; 33% of countries converge to China; 22% of countries converge to the USA, and 11% of countries converge to Russia. Interestingly, USA does not exhibit nonlinear military expenditure convergence toward world’s average level. For panel NCADF regression, the result suggests that on average, there is evidence for countries converging to USA’s military expenditure at 10% significance level. For the convergence to the world’s average, the statistical significance is at the 1% significance level.     

舰艇机动穿越深海会聚区对潜艇探测研究

深海会聚区效应是深海水声传播显著的特征,并为远距离潜艇探测提供了有效途径。首先分析了深海会聚区形成的原因和条件,然后根据海区会聚区的预报距离和宽度,构建了舰艇采用两次机动穿越会聚区测算被探测潜艇的位置和运动要素模型,最后通过算例分析舰艇两次穿越会聚区的方法和求解潜艇运动要素和位置的过程,分析结果验证了舰艇穿越会聚区对潜艇定位方法的可行性。