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Guns and butter? Military expenditure and health spending on the eve of the Arab Spring

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  • Adam Coutts
  • Adel Daoud
  • Ali Fakih
  • Walid Marrouch
  • Bernhard Reinsberg

Abstract

We examine the validity of the guns-versus-butter hypothesis in the pre-Arab Spring era. Using panel data from 1995 to 2011 – the eve of the Arab uprisings – we find no evidence that increased security needs as measured by the number of domestic terrorist attacks are complemented by increased military spending or more importantly ‘crowd out’ government expenditure on key public goods such as health care. This suggests that both expenditure decisions were determined by other considerations at the government level.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Coutts & Adel Daoud & Ali Fakih & Walid Marrouch & Bernhard Reinsberg, 2019. "Guns and butter? Military expenditure and health spending on the eve of the Arab Spring," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 227-237, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:30:y:2019:i:2:p:227-237
    DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2018.1497372
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    2. Luqman, Muhammad & Antonakakis, Nikolaos, 2021. "Guns better than butter in Pakistan? The dilemma of military expenditure, human development, and economic growth," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    3. MAÏ ASSAN CHEDI, Maman, 2022. "Does Defence Expenditure Affect Education and Health expenditures in Saharan Africa?," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 10(4), September.
    4. Adel Daoud & Anders Herlitz & SV Subramanian, 2020. "Combining distributive ethics and causal Inference to make trade-offs between austerity and population health," Papers 2007.15550, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    5. Eman Elish & Hossam Eldien Ahmed & Mostafa E. AboElsoud, 2023. "Military spending crowding out health and education spending: which views are valid in Egypt?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    6. Guy Assaker & Wassim Shahin, 2022. "What Drives Faculty Publication Citations in the Business Field? Empirical Results from an AACSB Middle Eastern Institution," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-29, November.
    7. Adem Elveren & Valentine M. Moghadam, 2019. "The impact of militarization on gender inequality and female labor force participation," Working Papers 1307, Economic Research Forum, revised 21 Aug 2019.
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