Politická ekonomie X:X | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.1502

Military Expenditures and Economic Growth: Evidence from Turkey

Ahmet Kadiroğlu ORCID...
Ahmet Kadiroğlu (corresponding author), Bingöl University, Social and Economic Studies Application and Research Center, Bingöl, Turkey

A recent focus on the socioeconomic impacts of military expenditures has led to a resurgence of interest in research and development activities in this domain. A comprehensive review of extant academic studies reveals a conspicuous absence of research examining the augmented Solow growth model, encompassing capital formation, labor force, military expenditures, and economic growth for Turkey. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the impact of capital formation, labor force, and military expenditures on economic growth in Turkey from 1991 to 2022. To this end, the study employs the residual augmented least square (RALS) approach. The coefficients for the variables in the long run are analyzed with the EKK method and FMOLS, DOLS, and CCR estimators. The original contribution of this study lies in its comprehensive examination of the impact of developments in military expenditures on economic growth in Turkey, thereby addressing a significant research gap. The study’s findings indicate that while military expenditures exerted a negative influence on the Turkish economy during the period 1991–2022, the augmentation in capital formation and the labor force exerted a positive influence on the same economy.

Keywords: Economic growth, military expenditures, capital formation, labor force, Turkey

Received: November 7, 2024; Revised: February 25, 2025; Accepted: March 28, 2025; Prepublished online: November 2, 2025 

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