Marzian, Johannes; Trebesch, Christoph - 2026 - First draft: January 2024, this draft: February 2026
We study the fiscal consequences of large military buildups. To do so, we assemble the Global Budget Database, a comprehensive dataset of disaggregated central government finances for 20 countries from 1870 to 2022. We identify 114 episodes of military spending booms, in peace and war, and...