Country Survey: Military Expenditure And Its Impact On Productivity In Italy, 1988–2008

This paper analyses the military expenditures in Italy over the period 1988–2008. The estimation of a conventional model of military expenditure shows that the choices of military expenditure by Italian governments are influenced by US and, to a lesser extent, the other NATO countries’ defence spending. In particular, the negative association between the US and NATO average military expenditure on the Italian one suggests a free-rider behaviour of Italy. Eventually, we focus on the relationship between productivity and military expenditure. The results suggest that there is a negative association between productivity and military expenditures in the long run. Namely, if military expenditures were substituted by civilian expenditures, the Italian overall productivity would be expected to improve.