Abstract
Since the Arab-Israel war of 1967, military expenditure/GNP ratios for the participants in the conflict-Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Irag-have escalated to levels far surpassing those in other developing areas and even those of the superpowers locked in an extensive global arms race. In the Middle East, a region of low per capita income and not especially endowed with an abundance of natural resources, the costs incurred by military expendenditures are particularly severe. The purpose of the paper is to measure these costs. A simple variant of the Harrod-Domar model is employed to determine the military burden. Estimates are made for both the 1960-1970 and the 1970-1980 periods. A set of assumptions-none peculiar to the Middle East-is posited to describe the transfer of resources from military to civilian production in a hypothesized process of deescalation. The additions to civilian production provide the basis for the estimates of the economic sacrifice the Middle East populations incur in maintaining the abnormal levels of military expenditure/GNP ratios.
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