ABSTRACT

We examine the determinants of military spending of the six countries in the Gulf Region by using a partial adjustment model in a system setting estimated with the three-stage least squares (3SLS) method. Our model takes into consideration the institutional inertia as well as intercountry correlations, both observed and unobserved. In addition to economic variables, we also consider a series of strategic variables to shed light on various issues such as free riding and spill-in effects. Our findings based on annual data between 1980 and 2016 indicate that the military expenditures are influenced by both economic and strategic factors with a high degree of heterogeneity across different countries. Our results also show that the GCC member countries do not free ride on each others’ military expenditures. In addition, the US military presence is an important determinant of defense spending in the region.

摘要

我们在使用三阶段最小二乘法（3SLS）估计的系统设置中使用部分调整模型来研究海湾地区六国军费开支的决定因素。我们的模型考虑了制度惯性以及国家间的相关性，包括观察到的和未观察到的。除了经济变量外，我们还考虑了一系列战略变量，以阐明诸如搭便车和溢出效应等各种问题。我们基于 1980 年至 2016 年的年度数据得出的研究结果表明，军费开支受到经济和战略因素的影响，并且在不同国家之间存在高度异质性。我们的研究结果还表明，海合会成员国不会搭便车彼此的军费开支。此外，