The Reporting of Military Expenditures

Abstract

Strong assumptions about the military sector are often made from weak data. This is as true for military expenditure data as for other data series. This judgement holds true despite the number of well known and highly reputed institutions putting out military expenditure data. These institutions must either rely totally on figures released by national governments or on information by secret services which cannot be controlled. Besides the problems associated with data origins (definitions of military expenditures, bad reporting by governments), there are problems associated with data preparation. Different sources on military expend iture utilize different modes of data preparation. Rearrangements in time, inflation correction and conversion into a common currency increase the uncertainties about data on military expenditures. The problem revolves around purposes of the data services.

Two primary issues for interest in military expenditure data include military strength and opportunity costs. The second issue should be singled out; there are large conceptual dif ficulties with the former. However, some sources frequently confuse the issues. The inter national comparability of military expenditure data is severely limited when common exchange rates are used. This should suggest extreme care for researchers who use military expenditure data taken from what is generally viewed as authoritative sources.