Purpose

In pursuit of good governance and better allocation of resources, corruption and informal economy are of interest to policymakers and citizens alike. The impacts of military spending on the informal economy are scant. Moreover, the effects of an external factor, such as corruption that moderates this relationship, have largely been neglected in previous studies. Hence, this paper investigates how corruption moderates the effects of military spending on the informal economy in 30 Asian countries from 1995 to 2017.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper utilizes the GMM estimation technique, which allows cross-sectional dependence and slope homogeneity in panel data analysis, to examine the moderating role of corruption on the relationship between military spending and the informal economy.

Findings

Empirical findings from this paper indicate that an increase in military spending declines the informal economy while corruption increases it. Interestingly, the negative effects of military spending on the informal economy will mitigate with a greater degree of corruption in the Asian region. We also find that enhancing economic growth and attracting more FDI has reduced the informal economy in Asian countries.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study conducted to examine the moderating role of corruption on the military spending – informal economy nexus. Thus far, this approach has not been investigated in the existing literature, particularly for Asian countries.

中文翻译：

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腐败是否会抑制军费开支与非正规经济的联系？来自亚洲国家的经验证据

目的

在追求善治和更好地分配资源的过程中，腐败和非正规经济引起了政策制定者和公民的兴趣。军费开支对非正规经济的影响微乎其微。此外，先前的研究很大程度上忽略了外部因素的影响，例如调节这种关系的腐败。因此，本文研究了 1995 年至 2017 年间腐败如何减轻 30 个亚洲国家军费开支对非正规经济的影响。

设计/方法论/途径

本文利用 GMM 估计技术来检验腐败对军费开支与非正规经济之间关系的调节作用，该技术允许面板数据分析中的横截面依赖性和斜率同质性。

发现

本文的实证研究结果表明，军费开支的增加会削弱非正规经济，而腐败则会加剧非正规经济。有趣的是，军费开支对非正规经济的负面影响将随着亚洲地区腐败程度的加剧而减轻。我们还发现，促进经济增长和吸引更多外国直接投资减少了亚洲国家的非正规经济。

原创性/价值

据作者所知，这是第一项旨在检验腐败对军费开支与非正规经济关系的调节作用的实证研究。迄今为止，现有文献尚未对这种方法进行过研究，特别是对于亚洲国家。