1. Buy German Arms, Get Foreign Aid Free!
Third largest arms exporter in the world
Austin Baker
Abby Cooner
Prof. Vreeland
Krogh Honors Seminar

2. Research Question The Global Arms Trade German Arms Exports
Independent Variable Dependent Variable
German Arms Exports
German Foreign Aid
The Global Arms Trade
Eclectic Buying Patterns
Highly Competitive
Buyer’s Market

3. How does this make sense?
Hypothesis
If a country imports German arms, they are more likely to receive German foreign aid.
How does this make sense?
The German arms acquisition process directly influences the distribution of foreign aid.

4. The Process Foreign Country German Arms Manufacturers
Buys Arms
Receives
Aid
Federal Security Council
BDSV
Export
Permits
Chancellor
Bundestag

5. Methodology Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Arms transfers database
OECD Data (Vreeland, et. al.)
Adapted from “Model 5”
Country and year fixed-effects

6. Effect of German Arms Imports on Bilateral Aid received from Germany
Level of German Arms Imports
0.01**
(2.36)
UNSC Member
0.76**
(2.13)
Pariah state
-1.79
(0.99)
War
-0.81
(1.37)
ln(GDP per capita, real)
-0.03
(0.02)
Political regime
0.06
(0.86)
U.S. Military Assistance (Const dollars)
0.09**
(2.31)
Number of observations
1121
R-squared
0.31

7. Conclusion Arms market: extremely competitive
Small impact, statistically significant
Causal logic reinforced by data

8. Future Work Expand control variables Lagging data Case studies
Deeper understanding of German government and German lobbying practices