Countries that strike it rich when exploring for oil and gas often fail to see growth materialize. This paper shows that one way things can get messy is via squandering new wealth, based on future resource revenues, on arms imports. In the five years following a giant oil or gas discovery, arms...

Small arms and light weapons (SALWs) imports have been found to be linked to a worsening of human rights conditions in the importing state. In this paper, we reexamine the relationship of government’s SALW imports and the decision to engage in violations of physical integrity rights using...

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...

The end of the Cold War has increased the relative importance of economic causes and consequences of arms transfers. Unfortunately, there is surprisingly little theoretical and empirical development of the economics of arms trade, making it a sub-field of defense economics ripe for foundational...

In recent years, private military companies (PMCs) and private security companies (PSCs)have been increasingly employed by large and active military nations for tasks both at home and abroad: generally as a cost-cutting measure, but also to eke out overstretched state resources. A wide range of...