The relationships between renewable energy, net energy imports, arms exports, and military expenditures in the USA

Ben Youssef, Slim (2020): The relationships between renewable energy, net energy imports, arms exports, and military expenditures in the USA.

Abstract

We evaluate the relationships between renewable energy consumption, net energy imports, military expenditures, arms exports, gross domestic product, and carbon dioxide emissions by using annual data about the USA during the period 1980-2016. The autoregressive distributed lag approach and the vector error correction model are used. Long-run unidirectional causalities are running from all considered variables to net energy imports and arms exports. We show that arms exports have a positive long-run effect on both renewable energy consumption and on net energy imports. Military expenditures have a positive long-term effect on renewable energy consumption, but they have a negative long-term effect on net energy imports. We recommend that the United States should prefer to export sophisticated weapons to its allies rather than intervene directly and militarily in the event it should secure its supply of imported fossil fuels; we also recommend increasing the R&D budget of the US Department of Defense allocated to innovations in renewable energies.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Renewable energy; net energy imports; arms exports; military expenditures; autoregressive distributed lag; USA.
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C3 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models ; Multiple Variables > C32 - Time-Series Models ; Dynamic Quantile Regressions ; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models ; Diffusion Processes ; State Space Models; H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H56 - National Security and War; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O51 - U.S. ; Canada; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q4 - Energy > Q42 - Alternative Energy Sources

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