Theoretical and empirical research on causes and consequences of defense spending is plentiful. Most of this research uses ‘top line’ defense spending data, either as a share of GDP or as a raw monetary figure. Empirical research has been limited, however, by the ‘blunt’ nature of this data, which does not help to explain what countries are spending on. We introduce a dataset that provides information on disaggregated defense spending from 35 NATO and EU members over as many as 51 years. We discuss the main features of this data in the paper, and the replication files will enable other scholars to automate accessing it in the future. In addition to automating the extraction of NATO and European Defence Agency data on overall military expenditures, we make data on equipment, personnel, operating, and infrastructure spending available in a single dataset. We illustrate the utility of the disaggregated defense spending dataset by replicating canonical and newer analyses using both the overall data and its disaggregated components. The findings differ depending on which type of spending is considered. We found that differences in the relationship between national wealth and defense spending depended on the category of spending considered, as did the tendency toward ‘free-riding’. These exercises shed new light on seminal theories on burden-sharing and the political economy of security. Our initial analysis suggests that disaggregating defense spending is likely to improve the analysis of old and emerging research questions of considerable policy importance, and points to several opportunities to do so.

中文翻译：

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分类国防开支：数据简介

关于国防开支的原因和后果的理论和实证研究非常丰富。这项研究的大部分内容都使用“顶线”国防支出数据，要么是占国内生产总值的比例，要么是原始货币数据。然而，由于这些数据的“生硬”性质，实证研究受到了限制，这无助于解释各国的支出情况。我们引入了一个数据集，该数据集提供了 35 个北约和欧盟成员国长达 51 年的分类国防支出信息。我们在论文中讨论了这些数据的主要特征，复制文件将使其他学者将来能够自动访问它。除了自动提取北约和欧洲防务局的总体军事支出数据外，我们还在单个数据集中提供有关设备、人员、运营和基础设施支出的数据。我们通过使用整体数据及其分类组件复制规范和更新的分析来说明分类国防支出数据集的实用性。研究结果因考虑的支出类型而异。我们发现，国民财富与国防支出之间关系的差异取决于所考虑的支出类别，“搭便车”的倾向也是如此。这些练习为责任分担和安全政治经济学的开创性理论提供了新的启示。我们的初步分析表明，分解国防支出可能会改善对具有相当大的政策重要性的旧有和新兴研究问题的分析，并指出了这样做的几个机会。