Military spending and sustainable development

• Published date: 01 August 2022
• Author: Ceyhun Elgin,Adem Y. Elveren,Gökçer Özgür,Gül Dertli
• Date: 01 August 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12893

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Military spending and sustainable development

Ceyhun Elgin

1

| Adem Y. Elveren

2,3

| Gökçer Özgür

4

|

Gül Dertli

5

1

Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey

2

Izmir University of Economics, Izmir,

Turkey

3

Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg,

Massachusetts, USA

4

Gettysburg College, Gettysburg,

Pennsylvania, USA

5

Istanbul Topkapi University, Istanbul,

Turkey

Correspondence

Ceyhun Elgin, Department of Economics,

Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Email: ceyhun.elgin@boun.edu.tr

Abstract

Using a panel data set of 160 economies from 1950 to

2018, this paper examines the relationship between

military expenditures and economic, health-related,

education, environmental, and social indicators of sus-

tainable development. The results generally suggest

that the size of the military expenditures is negatively

associated with educational attainment, life expec-

tancy, infant and maternal mortality rates, female labor

force participation, gender equality, and access to safe

drinking water, electricity, basic sanitation, and posi-

tively correlated with mortality and poverty rates and

air pollution. The findings are generally robust to dif-

ferent specifications and interact with GDP per capita;

that is, the association of military spending with the

development indicators is stronger (weaker) in less

(more) developed economies.

KEYWORDS

military spending, economic development, sustainability

1|INTRODUCTION

This paper examines how military spending is associated with different sustainable develop-

ment indicators (SDIs) as well as the mechanisms through which this association takes place.

Although the end of the superpower conflict led to an initial decline in military spending,

global military spending has increased in recent decades due to post-Cold War intrastate con-

flicts. For example, between 2018 and 2019, global military expenditure increased by 3.6% to

reach $1.92 trillion, the largest annual increase since 2010 (SIPRI, 2020), and high global mili-

tary expenditure causes a massive waste of resources.

Received: 4 January 2021 Revised: 22 February 2022 Accepted: 14 April 2022

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12893

1466 © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Rev Dev Econ. 2022;26:1466–1490.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode

A relatively high level of militarism has social and economic costs; nevertheless, its associa-

tion with economic development has been one of the neglected issues in development econom-

ics (Drèze, 2006a). Nevertheless, it is not easy to define militarism, and it can be considered as

military rule, military aggression, heavy influence of military institutions in public life, or

increased military spending (Drèze, 2006a). Various countries can satisfy one of the criteria for

militarism, but it is not easy to compare the degree or depth of militarism with these criteria.

Recognizing this difficulty, in this paper we use a partial but important indicator of militarism,

namely, military spending, to assess its association with the SDIs. Military spending, in particu-

lar, can have positive spillover effects in employment, infrastructure, and manufacturing, but it

also drains funds from SDI-improving programs, creates risks for health, well-being, and envi-

ronment, and, last but not least, it directly challenges peace, security, and prosperity. For these

reasons, in this paper we focus on military spending to investigate its effects on SDIs.

There is a sizable literature on the effects, implications, and correlations of military spend-

ing on/with different macroeconomic indicators, including economic growth, (un)employment,

income inequality, and health and education expenditure. (See Elveren & Moghadam, 2022 for

a review.) A related literature investigates the impact of war and armed conflict on health and

educational outcomes, while some studies focus on the impact on energy use (or carbon emis-

sion) specifically. However, there is no consensus in the literature, and the results from these

studies are divergent, if not ambiguous; and, to the best of our knowledge, no study has compre-

hensively examined the empirical relationship with sustainable development. Economic devel-

opment is not merely an improvement in an income-based indicator, but it embraces the

overall improvement in human well-being (Benería, Berik, & Floro, 2016). Focusing on sustain-

able development can be helpful to assess the overall impact of military spending on economic

development. Sustainable development is a set of principles that focus on “basic human needs,”

“long-term ecological sustainability,”and “inter-, and intra-generational equity”(Holden,

Linnerud, & Banister, 2014). The United Nations World Commission on Environment and

Development's (1987) report, Our Common Future (generally known as the Brundtland Report),

constructed its main framework (Holden et al., 2014); and an extensive, as well as critical, liter-

ature has investigated various aspects of sustainable development (Benería et al., 2016; Chang,

2011; Lèlè, 1991; Özgür, Elgin, & Elveren, 2021; Springett, 2013).

To this end, we first review the relevant works of literature before providing comprehensive

empirical evidence on the effects of military expenditure on all economic, social, and environmental

indicators of sustainable development. Covering a large number of countries (160) and a long time

period (1950–2018), our empirical results show a clear detrimental impact of military spending on

various dimensions of sustainable development. More specifically, it is positively associated with

higher infant, maternal, and suicide mortality, poverty, air pollution, and the number of teenage

mothers, and negatively associated with life expectancy, access to basic sanitation, drinking water,

and electricity, immunization, schooling, educational attainment, adult literacy, female labor force

participation, and gender equality. Overall, our findings suggest that the detrimental impact of mili-

tary spending decreases as the level of economic development increases.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: We review the relationship between military

spending and economic development, economic growth, un(employment), poverty, income

inequality, health and education expenditure, environmental indicators, and gender inequality

in Section 2. This review focuses on the negative and positive effects of military spending on

various indicators. We introduce the data and empirical methods in Section 3following this

review. Section 4presents the estimations. Finally, in Section 5, we summarize our main

findings.

ELGIN ET AL.1467