"Guns or Butter?" Revisited: Robustness and Nonlinearity Issues in the Defense-Grotwth Nexus

The relationship between military expenditure and growth is studied taking into account potential nonlinearities and robustness issues in the specification of the econometric models used. Using cross-country growth regressions and the widely used Feder-Ram model, the partial correlation between defense and economic growth appears robust and significantly negative only for countries with a relatively low military expenditure ratio. While the externality effect appears positive in this subgroup of countries, the overall effect turns negative due to the size effect of the military sector.