Investigating the Nexus Between Militarization and Inflation in Turkey

Abstract

The importance of military expenditure in terms of establishing national security constitutes the main excuse for public expenditures made by states in this field. Yet, a special importance should be attached to military expenditure in terms of ensuring the efficiency of the public sectors of developing countries and rational use of resources. In fact, there is no consensus about the effect of these types of expenditures on the economy in general or the trade-offs they cause. Therefore, their effects on major macroeconomic variables and efficiency in resource allocation, production, and distribution deserve to be comprehensively addressed. To this end, this study aims to investigate the long- term effect of militarization on inflation in Turkey. By incorporating the annual data from the period 1970 to 2020 and employing the combined approach to cointegration suggested by Bayer and Hanck (2013), the presence of long-term interplay between militarization and inflation can be analyzed. After detecting the presence of cointegration, the findings of the long run model reveal that inflation is spurred by military expenditure and arms imports besides the other determinants of inflation.