This chapter provides an overview of the main theoretical and empirical findings in the economics of military alliances. The pure public and joint product models are presented along with the empirical methods used to test them. Issues concerning burden sharing and strategic doctrine in the NATO...

In this chapter, we review the recent literature on conflict and appropriation. Allowing for the possibility of conflict, which amounts to recognizing the possibility that property rights are not perfectly and costlessly enforced, represents a significant departure from the traditional paradigm...

The study of peacekeeping from an economics perspective is a fairly recent phenomenon. This chapter surveys three research areas pursued by economists in analyzing peacekeeping. The first research strand examines the theory and empirics of peacekeeping financing and burden sharing, while the...

The USA and other countries spend a significant portion of their defense budgets on personnel. Effective management of military forces requires an understanding of the economics of military manpower. Over the past three decades economists have produced a substantial body of research about the...

In this chapter we present the main characteristics and problems involved in the study of the arms trade: product definition and data, strategic aspects of the arms trade and regulation. We illustrate these aspects using the latest theoretical and empirical literature on arms trade. The papers...

International economic sanctions have become increasingly important as alternatives to military conflict since the end of the Cold War. This chapter surveys various approaches to the study of economic sanctions in both the economics and international relations literatures. Sanctions may be...

At least since 1750 when Baron de Montesquieu declared "peace is the natural effect of trade," a number of economists and political scientists espoused the notion that trade among nations leads to peace. Employing resources more efficiently to produce some commodities rather than others is the...

Since the publication of Volume 1 of the Handbook of Defense Economics, key events have shaped the defense manpower research agenda and called for research to help policymakers deal with the challenges that these factors presented. One event was the end of the Cold War, which permitted drastic...

This chapter discusses developing (non-high income) states' participation in the production and trade of parts or whole units of major conventional weapons, their integration into a transnationalized global arms industry, and the underlying industrial prerequisites that make that participation...

This chapter examines a number of aspects of defense R&D, including: mechanisms -- design competitions, and independent R&D subsidies -- used by the US government to encourage firms to invest their own funds in defense R&D; theory and evidence concerning both the private and social benefits of,...