The impact of military expenditures on economic growth in Turkey

The relationship between military expenditures and growth is a subject that has been extensively researched in the literature. The aim of this thesis is to examine the relationship between defense expenditures and economic growth and some macroeconomic indicators related to economic growth for the period of 2000-2020 in Turkey. Different from other studies, two separate data sets were used in the thesis. For this period, the relationship between defense expenditures and economic growth was tested with Granger Causality Analysis with two separate data sets, both the SIPRI data set prepared from international data and the data set prepared from national budget data. According to the results of the analysis, there is a bidirectional relationship between defense expenditures and economic growth in Turkey, while there is a one-way relationship between the gross domestic savings analyzed in relation to growth, but no relationship can be found between unemployment and foreign trade balance figures and defense expenditures.