IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10872.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Value of National Defense: Assessing Public Preferences for Defense Policy Options

Author

Listed:
  • Salmai Qari
  • Tobias Börger
  • Tim Lohse
  • Jürgen Meyerhoff

Abstract

Defense spending accounts for a large share of the budget in many countries, but the value of the resulting public good - national defense – has so far escaped assessment. Much of the literature has instead considered indirect benefits of defense spending in terms of greater economic growth or technological spillovers. In this paper, we assess the direct welfare effects of defense policy, namely an increase in the security of citizens, by means of a survey-based discrete choice experiment. Drawing on a representative sample of the German population, results suggest substantial willingness to pay for an increase in troop numbers, the establishment of a European army and an improved air defense system. The reintroduction of compulsory military service does not enjoy public support. Results further indicate substantial preference heterogeneity across respondents and policy options which we explore. As such, these findings demonstrate how methods of survey-based, non-market valuation can help to refine research in this area of public policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Salmai Qari & Tobias Börger & Tim Lohse & Jürgen Meyerhoff, 2023. "The Value of National Defense: Assessing Public Preferences for Defense Policy Options," CESifo Working Paper Series 10872, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10872
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10872.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Potrafke, Niklas, 2020. "General or central government? Empirical evidence on political cycles in budget composition using new data for OECD countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Kyriakos Emmanouilidis & Christos Karpetis, 2020. "The Defense–Growth Nexus: A Review of Time Series Methods and Empirical Results," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 86-104, January.
    3. Ryan A. Compton & Bryan Paterson, 2016. "Military Spending and Growth: The Role of Institutions," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 301-322, June.
    4. Jose Grisolia & K. G. Willis, 2011. "An evening at the theatre: using choice experiments to model preferences for theatres and theatrical productions," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(27), pages 3987-3998.
    5. Bove, Vincenzo & Efthyvoulou, Georgios & Navas, Antonio, 2017. "Political cycles in public expenditure: butter vs guns," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 582-604.
    6. Blum, Johannes, 2019. "Arms production, national defense spending and arms trade: Examining supply and demand," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    7. Castro, Vítor & Martins, Rodrigo, 2018. "Politically driven cycles in fiscal policy: In depth analysis of the functional components of government expenditures," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 44-64.
    8. Michael Kosfeld & Akira Okada & Arno Riedl, 2009. "Institution Formation in Public Goods Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1335-1355, September.
    9. Tim Lohse & Julio R. Robledo & Ulrich Schmidt, 2012. "Self‐Insurance and Self‐Protection as Public Goods," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 79(1), pages 57-76, March.
    10. Herbst, Luisa & Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2015. "Endogenous group formation in experimental contests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 163-189.
    11. Catherine L. Kling & Daniel J. Phaneuf & Jinhua Zhao, 2012. "From Exxon to BP: Has Some Number Become Better Than No Number?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 3-26, Fall.
    12. Alexandre Mas & Amanda Pallais, 2017. "Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3722-3759, December.
    13. David Throsby & Glenn Withers, 2001. "Individual preferences and the demand for military expenditure," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 87-102.
    14. Glenk, Klaus & Meyerhoff, Jürgen & Akaichi, Faical & Martin-Ortega, Julia, 2019. "Revisiting cost vector effects in discrete choice experiments," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 135-155.
    15. Fize, Etienne & Louis-Sidois, Charles, 2020. "Military service and political behavior: Evidence from France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    16. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Siew Ling Yew, 2018. "The effect of military expenditure on growth: an empirical synthesis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1357-1387, November.
    17. Matthew Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2018. "Preference for the Workplace, Investment in Human Capital, and Gender," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 457-507.
    18. Robert J. Johnston & Abdulallah S. Abdulrahman, 2017. "Systematic non-response in discrete choice experiments: implications for the valuation of climate risk reductions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(3), pages 246-267, July.
    19. Julio J. Elías & Nicola Lacetera & Mario Macis, 2019. "Paying for Kidneys? A Randomized Survey and Choice Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2855-2888, August.
    20. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    21. Florian Dorn & Niklas Potrafke & Marcel Schlepper, 2024. "European Defence Spending in 2024 and Beyond: How to Provide Security in an Economically Challenging Environment," EconPol Policy Reports 45, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    22. Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Nicolaj Verdelin, 2012. "Optimal Provision of Public Goods: A Synthesis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(2), pages 384-408, June.
    23. Doti, James, 1978. "The Response of Economic Literature to Wars," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(4), pages 616-626, October.
    24. Alptekin, Aynur & Levine, Paul, 2012. "Military expenditure and economic growth: A meta-analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 636-650.
    25. Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler, 2001. "Economics of Alliances: The Lessons for Collective Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 869-896, September.
    26. Richard Carson & Theodore Groves, 2007. "Incentive and informational properties of preference questions," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 37(1), pages 181-210, May.
    27. von Haefen, Roger H. & Domanski, Adam, 2018. "Estimation and welfare analysis from mixed logit models with large choice sets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 101-118.
    28. Yoo, Hong Il, 2019. "lclogit2: An enhanced module to estimate latent class conditional logit models," MPRA Paper 97014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    29. Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen & David Powell & Till von Wachter & Jeffrey B. Wenger, 2023. "The Value of Working Conditions in the United States and the Implications for the Structure of Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(7), pages 2007-2047, July.
    30. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/45gqdl5l4387f9b9l12gr2g3kt is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Robert J. Johnston & Eric T. Schultz & Kathleen Segerson & Elena Y. Besedin & Mahesh Ramachandran, 2012. "Enhancing the Content Validity of Stated Preference Valuation: The Structure and Function of Ecological Indicators," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(1), pages 102-120.
    32. Klomp, Jeroen, 2023. "Political budget cycles in military expenditures: A meta-analysis," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1083-1102.
    33. Wolfgang Buchholz & Todd Sandler, 2021. "Global Public Goods: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 488-545, June.
    34. Collins, Jill P. & Vossler, Christian A., 2009. "Incentive compatibility tests of choice experiment value elicitation questions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 226-235, September.
    35. Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2008. "Collective Action and the Group Size Paradox," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 379-388, Springer.
    36. Vesa Kanniainen & Panu Poutvaara, 2018. "The Economics of Peace and War: An Overview," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 64(4), pages 545-554.
    37. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/45gqdl5l4387f9b9l12gr2g3kt is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Lechthaler, Filippo & Vinogradova, Alexandra, 2017. "The climate challenge for agriculture and the value of climate services: Application to coffee-farming in Peru," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 5-30.
    39. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Wiktor (Vic) Adamowicz & Jeff Bennett & Roy Brouwer & Trudy Ann Cameron & W. Michael Hanemann & Nick Hanley & Mandy Ryan & Riccardo Scarpa & Roger Tourangeau & Ch, 2017. "Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 319-405.
    40. Ladenburg, Jacob & Olsen, Søren Bøye, 2014. "Augmenting short Cheap Talk scripts with a repeated Opt-Out Reminder in Choice Experiment surveys," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 39-63.
    41. Hoyos, David, 2010. "The state of the art of environmental valuation with discrete choice experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1595-1603, June.
    42. Asif Efrat & Omer Yair, 2024. "Should we sell arms to human rights violators? What the public thinks," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(6), pages 694-712, August.
    43. Klomp, Jeroen, 2023. "Defending election victory by attacking company revenues: The impact of elections on the international defense industry," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    44. David Revelt & Kenneth Train, 1998. "Mixed Logit With Repeated Choices: Households' Choices Of Appliance Efficiency Level," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 647-657, November.
    45. Smith, R P, 1989. "Models of Military Expenditure," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(4), pages 345-359, Oct.-Dec..
    46. Benoit, Emile, 1978. "Growth and Defense in Developing Countries," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 271-280, January.
    47. J. Paul Dunne & Ron Smith & Dirk Willenbockel, 2005. "Models Of Military Expenditure And Growth: A Critical Review," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(6), pages 449-461.
    48. Richard C. Bishop & Kevin J. Boyle, 2019. "Reliability and Validity in Nonmarket Valuation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(2), pages 559-582, February.
    49. J. Paul Dunne & Nan Tian, 2016. "Military expenditure and economic growth, 1960–2014," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 11(2), pages 50-56, October.
    50. Smith, Ron, 1995. "The demand for military expenditure," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 69-87, Elsevier.
    51. Brzoska, Michael, 2007. "Success and Failure in Defense Conversion in the `Long Decade of Disarmament'," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 34, pages 1177-1210, Elsevier.
    52. Gutsche, Gunnar & Ziegler, Andreas, 2019. "Which private investors are willing to pay for sustainable investments? Empirical evidence from stated choice experiments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 193-214.
    53. Hess, Stephane & Palma, David, 2019. "Apollo: A flexible, powerful and customisable freeware package for choice model estimation and application," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-1.
    54. Smith, R P, 1977. "Military Expenditure and Capitalism," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 1(1), pages 61-76, March.
    55. Caplan, Arthur J. & Akhundjanov, Sherzod B. & Toll, Kristopher, 2021. "Measuring heterogeneous preferences for residential amenities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    56. Krinsky, Itzhak & Robb, A Leslie, 1990. "On Approximating the Statistical Properties of Elasticities: A Correction," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(1), pages 189-190, February.
    57. Brzoska, Michael, 1995. "World military expenditures," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 45-67, Elsevier.
    58. Bardt, Hubertus, 2018. "Verteidigungsausgaben in der (wirtschafts)politischen Diskussion," IW policy papers 12/2018, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) / German Economic Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Armin A. Bolouri & Tim Lohse & Salmai Qari, 2024. "Interdependent Preferences for Financing and Providing Public Goods – The Case of National Defense," CESifo Working Paper Series 11584, CESifo.
    2. Sergio Colombo & Wiktor Budziński & Mikołaj Czajkowski & Klaus Glenk, 2020. "Ex-ante and ex-post measures to mitigate hypothetical bias. Are they alternative or complementary tools to increase the reliability and validity of DCE estimates?," Working Papers 2020-20, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    3. Kyriakos Emmanouilidis & Christos Karpetis, 2022. "Cross–Country Dependence, Heterogeneity and the Growth Effects of Military Spending," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(7), pages 842-856, October.
    4. Shakoor Ahmed & Khorshed Alam & Afzalur Rashid & Jeff Gow, 2020. "Militarisation, Energy Consumption, CO2 Emissions and Economic Growth in Myanmar," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 615-641, August.
    5. Charles Shaaba Saba & Nicholas Ngepah, 2019. "Military expenditure and economic growth: evidence from a heterogeneous panel of African countries," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 3586-3606, January.
    6. Kollias Christos & Paleologou Suzanna-Maria & Tzeremes Panayiotis, 2020. "Defence Spending and Unemployment in the USA: Disaggregated Analysis by Gender and Age Groups," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 26(2), pages 1-13, May.
    7. Johannes Blum, 2021. "Democracy’s third wave and national defense spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 189(1), pages 183-212, October.
    8. Christos Kollias & Panayiotis Tzeremes, 2022. "Militarization, investment, and economic growth 1995–2019," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 17(1), pages 17-29, April.
    9. Dada James Temitope & Awoleye Emmanuel Olayemi & Arnaut Marina & Al-Faryan Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh, 2023. "Revisiting the Military Expenditure-Growth Nexus: Does Institutional Quality Moderate the Effect?," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 29(1), pages 19-42, February.
    10. Kyriakos Emmanouilidis & Christos Karpetis, 2020. "The Defense–Growth Nexus: A Review of Time Series Methods and Empirical Results," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 86-104, January.
    11. Isiaka Akande Raifu & Alarudeen Aminu, 2023. "The effect of military spending on economic growth in MENA: evidence from method of moments quantile regression," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 1-21, December.
    12. Weng, Weizhe & Morrison, Mark D. & Boyle, Kevin J. & Boxall, Peter C. & Rose, John, 2021. "Effects of the number of alternatives in public good discrete choice experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Ahi, Jülide Ceren & Aanesen, Margrethe & Kipperberg, Gorm, 2023. "Testing the sensitivity of stated environmental preferences to variations in choice architecture," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    14. J. Paul Dunne & Ron P. Smith, 2020. "Military Expenditure, Investment and Growth," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 601-614, August.
    15. Sergio Colombo & Wiktor Budziński & Mikołaj Czajkowski & Klaus Glenk, 2022. "The relative performance of ex‐ante and ex‐post measures to mitigate hypothetical and strategic bias in a stated preference study," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 845-873, September.
    16. Hanson Robert & Jeon Joo Young, 2024. "The Military Expenditure – Economic Growth Nexus Revisited: Evidence from the United Kingdom," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 30(2), pages 207-248.
    17. Robert J. Johnston & Ewa Zawojska, 2020. "Relative Versus Absolute Commodity Measurements in Benefit Transfer: Consequences for Validity and Reliability," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(4), pages 1245-1270, August.
    18. Alessandra Cepparulo & Paolo Pasimeni, 2024. "Defence Spending in the European Union," European Economy - Discussion Papers 199, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    19. Farolfi, Giulio & Johnston, Robert J., 2022. "Understanding Public Preferences for Shellfish Aquaculture Expansion: The Role of Production Technology and Environmental Impacts," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322131, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Wiktor (Vic) Adamowicz & Jeff Bennett & Roy Brouwer & Trudy Ann Cameron & W. Michael Hanemann & Nick Hanley & Mandy Ryan & Riccardo Scarpa & Roger Tourangeau & Ch, 2017. "Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 319-405.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public good; national defense; non-market valuation; discrete choice experiment; willingness to pay;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10872. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.