Title: Between military spending and economic development

Authors: Nadine J. Ghandour; Mohamad Diab

Addresses: Mathematics Department, Lebanese University, Nabatieh Campus, Nabatieh, Lebanon. ' Economics Department, Lebanese University, Hadath Campus, Beirut, Lebanon

Abstract: The global financial and economic crisis has resulted in many nations cutting back on all sorts of public spending, and yet military spending seems to be increasing. In fact world military expenditure is increasing tremendously in almost all world countries, even poor countries with low and middle incomes in Asia and Africa spend a great part of its national wealth to buy arms. In this paper, we study the effect of military spending on development opportunities in general; we then take a look at the military expenditure of the Gulf countries in order to have an idea about the importance of military buildup and army modernisation in Gulf countries and the differences in its spending priorities.

Keywords: military expenditure; economic development; financial crisis; economic crisis; Gulf countries; military buildup; army modernisation; spending priorities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEME.2012.048605

International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics, 2012 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.58 - 73

Published online: 15 Apr 2015 *

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