The economic costs of military conflict

Smith, Ron

doi:10.1177/0022343313496595

Cited by 43 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Historically, however, growth has been much more uneven across countries over the last four decades [37]. A partial reason is armed conflict, which often critically stunts GDP growth and other welfare developments [38,39]. These types of political obstacles to growth are not included in the OECD ENV-Growth model and thus are not reflected in the SSPs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecasting civil conflict along the shared socioeconomic pathways

Hegre

Buhaug

Calvin

et al. 2016

Environ. Res. Lett.

135

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate change and armed civil conflict are both linked to socioeconomic development, although conditions that facilitate peace may not necessarily facilitate mitigation and adaptation to climate change. While economic growth lowers the risk of conflict, it is generally associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions and costs of climate mitigation policies. This study investigates the links between growth, climate change, and conflict by simulating future civil conflict using new scenario data for five alternative socioeconomic pathways with different mitigation and adaptation assumptions, known as the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). We develop a statistical model of the historical effect of key socioeconomic variables on country-specific conflict incidence, 1960-2013. We then forecast the annual incidence of conflict, 2014-2100, along the five SSPs. We find that SSPs with high investments in broad societal development are associated with the largest reduction in conflict risk. This is most pronounced for the least developed countries-poverty alleviation and human capital investments in poor countries are much more effective instruments to attain global peace and stability than further improvements to wealthier economies. Moreover, the SSP that describes a sustainability pathway, which poses the lowest climate change challenges, is as conducive to global peace as the conventional development pathway.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecasting civil conflict along the shared socioeconomic pathways

Hegre

Buhaug

Calvin

et al. 2016

Environ. Res. Lett.

135

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This may suggest either multiplier close to zero, i.e., the military expenditure crowds out other components of GDP (see Smith 2014) or positive fiscal multipliers offset by negative war effects such as increased oil prices. While Barro and Redlick (2011) find a multiplier of 0.7 on average, our result are in line with Aksoy and Melina (2012) who do not find any Granger causality between defense spending and real output variations in US data.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While this procedure is relatively straightforward and can fit multiple scenarios, it can result in double counting and preclude statical inference (see Gardeazabal 2012). More importantly, even accounting procedures require a counterfactual (see Smith 2014). What are the extra costs caused by the intervention above the normal costs which would have to be paid in any case?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of American and British involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq on health spending, military spending and economic growth

Bove¹,

Elia²

2014

The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Had there been no involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, how much lower would military and health spending have been in the US and the UK? And what is the total effect of war on real output variations as compared with its counterfactual? We use a synthetic control method and find that while the UK and the US have experienced similar relative increases in health spending, especially towards the end of the 10-year window, the effect on military spending is much more pronounced in the US. We find that the combined cumulative costs amount to more than 17% of the US GDP and more than 9% of the UK GDP. Moreover, there are no robust signs of a convergence between the true and counterfactual levels of military spending while health spending shows a level shift in the last 5 years in both countries. Finally, there is no evidence of changes in the national income following the sharp increase in defense spending.

show abstract

“…Long‐terms costs, which are less frequently considered, include intergenerational effects, transboundary effects, and environmental effects. Alternatively, the costs can be categorized as destruction and deferred accumulation and legacy costs (Smith, ).…”

Section: Cost Of Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has not been, and while there has been an impressive growth in the literature on the causes and duration of civil conflict (e.g. Collier & Hoeffler, ; Fearon & Laitin, ), research on the consequences of civil conflict in developing economies has been less evident (Smith, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs of civil war and fragile states in Africa

Dunne

Tian

2019

Review Development Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper provides an analysis of the costs of conflict for the countries that are most affected by it, namely low‐income and fragile countries in Africa. It provides an analysis of the impact of conflict on economic growth using a panel of African countries and investigates the differences between those categorized as fragile and others. It finds that there are significant differences, with fragile countries most affected by conflict. It also considers the potential spillover effects of conflict and finds that fragile states also suffer more from conflicts within neighboring states. Finally, it considers whether the results are robust to endogeneity of the conflict variable. Using instrumental variable estimation confirms the negative effect of conflict and the larger effects on fragile states and gives even larger coefficient estimates.

show abstract

The economic costs of military conflict

Cited by 43 publications

References 36 publications

Forecasting civil conflict along the shared socioeconomic pathways

Forecasting civil conflict along the shared socioeconomic pathways

The impact of American and British involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq on health spending, military spending and economic growth

Costs of civil war and fragile states in Africa

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About