I investigate how the third wave of democracy influenced national defense spending by reference to a panel of 110 countries over the 1972–2013 period. I apply new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on military expenditures, which has been extended to years prior to 1988, and four democracy measures to address differences among indices of democracy. The results from a dynamic panel data model suggest that democracy’s third wave reduced defense spending relative to GDP by about 10% within countries that experienced democratization. I exploit the regional diffusion of democracy in the context of the third wave of democratization as an instrumental variable (IV) for democracy in order to overcome endogeneity problems. The IV estimates indicate that democracy reduced national defense spending relative to GDP by about 20% within countries that experienced democratization, demonstrating that OLS underestimates the effect of democracy on national defense spending. The cumulative long-run effect of democratization resulting from the dynamics in defense spending is almost three times larger for both OLS and IV estimates.

通过参考1972-2013年期间110个国家的小组，我研究了第三次民主浪潮如何影响国防开支。我使用了斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所的有关军事支出的新数据，该数据已延至1988年之前的数年，并采用了四种民主措施来解决民主指标之间的差异。动态面板数据模型的结果表明，在经历民主化的国家中，民主的第三次浪潮使国防支出相对于GDP减少了约10％。为了克服内生性问题，我在第三次民主化浪​​潮中利用了民主的区域扩散作为民主的工具变量（IV）。第四次评估表明，民主国家在经历民主化的国家中将国防支出相对于GDP减少了约20％，这表明OLS低估了民主对国防支出的影响。国防开支动态产生的民主化累积长期影响几乎是OLS和IV估计的三倍。