Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-21T07:35:45.161Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Defense Expenditures and National Well-being

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1982

Bruce Russett
Bruce Russett*
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The existence of a trade-off between military expenditures and social spending is widely hypothesized but often difficult to establish empirically. This article constructs a model to test the effects of changes in military spending on federal expenditures for health and education from 1941 through 1979. Important economic, demographic, and political changes are controlled. No systematic tradeoff between military spending and federal health and education expenditures is found, nor in this period was there any significant depressing effect on health and education expenditures by Republican presidential administrations. Thus, the current administration, under which there are major increases in military spending and major cuts in health and education spending, emerges as exceptional.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , December 1982 , pp. 767 - 777
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baran, P. A., and Sweezy, P. M. 1968. Monopoly capital: an essay on the American economy and social order. Harmondsworth: Pelican.Google Scholar
Benoit, E. 1973. Defense and economic growth in developing countries. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath.Google Scholar
Burns, A. F. 1971. The defense sector and the American economy. In The war economy of the United States, ed. Melman, Seymour. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Caputo, D. 1975. New perspectives on the public policy implications of defense and welfare expenditures in four modern democracies, 1950–1970. Policy Sciences 6:423–46.10.1007/BF00142383CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, T. 1981. The Reagan budget round two, National Journal 03 14:445–48.Google Scholar
Economic Report of the President. 1981. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Executive Office of the President O. M. B. 1981. Special analyses: budget of the United States government, Fiscal Year 1982. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Hollenhorst, J. and Ault, G. 1971. An alternative answer to who pays for defense. American Political Science Review 3: 760–63.10.2307/1955520CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, G. 1974. The military in the Third World. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Lee, J. R. L. 1972. Changing national priorities of the United States. In Military force and American society, ed. Russett, B. and Stepan, A.. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Melman, S. 1974. The permanent war economy: American capitalism in decline. New York: Simon and Sehuster.Google Scholar
The New York Times. 1974. Military budget spurs economy. 01 27.Google Scholar
Nincic, M., and Cusack, T. 1979. The political economy of U.S. military spending. Journal of Peace Research 16:101–15.10.1177/002234337901600202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nixon, R. M. 1962. Six crises. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Peacock, A. T., and Wiseman, J. 1961. The growth of public expenditures in the United Kingdom. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Peroff, K., and Podolak-Warren, M. 1979. Does spending on defense cut spending on health? British Journal of Political Science 9:21–39.10.1017/S0007123400001605CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pryor, F. L. 1968. Public expenditures in communist and capitalist nations. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin.Google Scholar
Ravenal, E. C. 1978. Never again: learning from America's foreign policy failures. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Russett, B. 1969. Who pays for defense? American Political Science Review 63:412–26.10.2307/1954697CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russett, B. 1970. What price vigilance? The burdens of national defense. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Russett, B. 1971. Some decisions in the regression analysis of time-series data. In Mathematical applications in political science, V, ed. Herndon, J. and Bernd, J.. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Russett, B., and DeLuca, D. R. 1981. “Don't tread on me”: American opinion and foreign policy in the eighties. Political Science Quarterly 96:381–400.10.2307/2150551CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, D. and Smith, R. 1980. Military expenditure, resources and development. London: Birkbeck College Discussion Paper No. 87.Google Scholar
Smith, R. P. 1977. Military expenditures and capitalism, Cambridge Journal of Economics 1:61–76.10.1093/oxfordjournals.cje.a035351CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, A. A. 1980. The nation at war. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Szymanski, A. 1973. Military spending and economic stagnation. American Journal of Sociology 79:1–14.10.1086/225503CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thurow, L. 1981. How to wreck the economy. New York Review of Books, 05 14.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical statistics of the United States: colonial times to 1970. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau (various years). Statistical abstract of the United States. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Wilensky, H. 1965. The welfare state and equality. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.