The Significance of Military Expenditure, Tourism, and Exports for Sustainable Economic Growth

The current empirical study addresses the recent economics of Saudi Arabia such as the uncertainty of economic growth and dependence on oil export. For this purpose, labor, capital, oil price, terrorism, military expenditure, tourism, and exports are added to the analysis. ARDL long-run and short-run analyses are used, and the results of the study have revealed that labor is negatively related to economic growth, which suggests that efforts should be done to reduce dependence on international labor through the installation of production facilities in those countries where labor is cheap. Also, it is noted that capital, tourism, and non-oil exports enhance economic growth, whereas oil price is the main problem for the economic growth of the country. These results suggest that the diversification of exports to non-oil products is a good strategy to boost economic growth. Alongside, domestic tourism should be promoted to enhance its share in economic activities. The current study helps the policy makers to open new earning avenues such as enhanced tourism sectors and modernized industries which help in technology exports.

Rethinking Security: An Analytical Study to Explore the Correlation Between Military Expenditure and Human Security in Arms Importing (Developing) States

ABSTRACT The following research seeks to identify a correlation between increasing military expenditure and the simultaneous changes observed in the levels of human security in arms importing states under the world military order. Identification of such trends is needed because leaders use the narrow understanding of security in terms of military strength to justify the higher global military expenditure. However, it is also understood that growing military expenditure increases insecurity amongst states. This paradox excludes consideration of other factors that impact human lives and need to be secured. The research uses case studies analyzed with quantitative data and analysis to determine any correlation between the two variables - military expenditure and human security. It is found that in arms importing states, there is generally an inverse proportionality, causing a negative correlation between military expenditure and human security. Therefore, higher military expenditure causes a drop in human security in importing states due to various structural factors of the global arms hierarchy. This illustrates a need to rethink the understanding of security to include other factors of human security: economic, political, personal, community, health, food, and environmental security for a holistic security approach to human lives in contemporary security studies. KEYWORDS: arms control, security studies, military expenditure, international order, global arms trade, human security, humanitarianism, neo-imperialism, militarism, world military order

Universal Social Pensions Are Unaffordable … Not! Testing the Unaffordability Hypothesis in Latin America and the Caribbean

Is universal social assistance unaffordable? Targeting social policy has been praised as a magic solution to select the ‘deserving poor’ and efficiently use the scarce resources in the Global South. The article tests the unaffordability hypothesis using five counterfactual analyses based on expenditure redirection (military expenditure, energy subsidies, and the potential illegal/odious external debt servicing) and increasing tax revenues (income and trade tax) in up to thirty-three countries. The article shows the revenue-generating potential of taxes and reprioritising expenditures from unproductive to productive areas to finance – totally or partly- basic universal social pensions in large part of Latin America and the Caribbean; therefore, dispelling the unaffordability myth.

Testing the Power Transition Theory with Relative Military Power

This article tests the power transition theory using relative military power within a dyad pair. The author hypothesizes that when a dyad pair achieves relative military power parity, the two states are likely to initiate war. Furthermore, when a dyad pair no longer maintains relative military power parity, the probability of war between the two states decreases. Although the sample population used to test this hypothesis is small (n=3), the mixed-method analysis indicates support to the power transition theory. Furthermore, results are more substantial when using military expenditure and surplus domestic when compared to results using military personnel and surplus domestic product. No statistically significant difference exists (p=.99) when comparing military expenditure and surplus domestic product with a combination of military expenditure, military personnel, and surplus domestic product. These results indicate that relative military power possesses the potential to provide researchers an additional quantitative measure to test the power transition theory. Although these initial results are promising, further research is required to test a larger sample population of dyads.

Does Military Expenditure Impact Environmental Sustainability in Developed Mediterranean Countries?

This study aims to examine the relationship between military expenditure and environmental sustainability in developed Mediterranean countries: Greece, France, Italy, and Spain. Sustainable economic growth is strictly related to energy consumption which leads to producing a higher level of carbon emissions. Besides, there may be a nexus between military expenditures and environmental pollution. This study focuses on developed Mediterranean countries since carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions are relatively high in these countries. Furthermore, France and Italy are the top countries in terms of total military spending. We investigate the relationship between military expenditure and carbon emissions using the Global Vector Autoregression model proposed by Pesaran, Schuermann, and Weiner (2004) and Dees et al. (2007) between 1965 and 2019. The empirical findings indicated that the relationship between carbon emission and military expenditure should be taken into account from a global perspective for environmental sustainability, and an increase in the global military expenditure seems to be very harmful to the global environment. It can be concluded that country-based prevents cannot provide the desired solution in combating environmental pollution.