Abstract
This thesis analyses the relationship between military expenditure, industrialisation and economic growth in Africa. A balanced panel of 35 African countries was disaggregated into eight African regional economic communities (RECS), spanning 1990 to 2015. The study comprises five essays, excluding the first and last chapters, which set out the general introduction and conclusions, with policy recommendations. Each of the five essays are self-contained and can be considered standalone pieces of research work. The first essay (Chapter 2) investigates the causal relationship between military expenditure, industrialisation, and economic growth. We employed the Panel Vector Error Correction Model (PVECM) and the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) causality test. At both continental and regional economic levels, the PVECM causality test suggests that industrialisation and growth cause military expenditure both in the short-run and long-run. The Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) causality results reveal significant country-by-country differences among the variables. In the main, the causality results imply that African governments fund military expenditure/activities by taxing production...
Ph.D. (Economics)