Military Expenditure and Unemployment Nexus in Bangladesh

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of military expenditure on unemployment in Bangladesh, examining the cointegration among unemployment, military expenditure, and foreign direct investment. It also sheds light on the short and longrun dynamics of the variables under consideration. The study employs the ARDL bounds testing approach to investigate the cointegration among the variables using time series annual data from the period of 1990-2018. The dependant variable is unemployment and military expenditure and FDI are the independent variables. Thisresearch found a long run relationship among the variables. An increase in military expenditure significantly reduces unemployment in the short run, however, no significant long-run relationship is found. The higher FDI, the higher unemployment in the long run. This study contributes to fill the research gap regarding theimpact of military expenditure and FDI on unemployment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship among unemployment, military expenditure and FDI in Bangladesh using ARDL bounds testing approach with time series annual data.

Keywords

• Unemployment
• military expenditure
• FDI
• ARDL
• Bangladesh