Military expenditures and political regimes: Evidence from global data, 1963-2000

Our results yield two crucial facts. First, social democratic political regimes have a tendency to spend less on armaments as a share of the national income; compared to social democracy, all other political regimes are likely to have higher military burdens, confirming previous findings of the negative relationship between level of democracy and military burden. Second, the analysis shows that a higher income inequality is associated with a higher military burden.