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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between growth, investment and military expenditure in the case of the European Union‐15.

The paper uses fixed panel models, random coefficient models and a trivariate VAR model to examine empirically the relationship between these three macroeconomic variables.

The results obtained and reported herein show a significant positive effect of the growth rate on the share of military expenditure and on the share of investment. However, on the whole, the findings do not seem to point to any consistent quantitative relation between defence spending and either growth or investment. Thus, they appear to be in line with the findings of other studies.

The economic effects of military spending have drawn considerable attention. Demand side effects on capacity utilisation are one possible channel through which the economy can be positively affected by such expenditure. On the other hand however, reduced investment and capital stock have been reported as a possible negative economic impact of defence outlays that can more than offset any growth inducing effective demand stimulation. The paper attempts a simultaneous assessment of the impact of defence expenditure on both growth and investment for the EU‐15, something that has not been tried before.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of unemployment on various types of crime in Greece.

A battery of econometric tests, including Granger causality tests, a variance decomposition analysis, and an impulse response analysis are used to explore the nexus between unemployment and 14 different types of crime.

Out of the 14 different types of criminal activity, only in the case of three – vehicle thefts, robberies and contraband & smuggling – was a nexus with unemployment established.

Given that such criminal activity is primarily motivated and driven by economic gain, a policy implication is that crime thwarting policies need to be complemented by corresponding labour market interventions, especially in periods of recession, when unemployment emerges as a major problem for disadvantaged social groups.

The issue between labour market conditions and crime has not been addressed before in the case of Greece, a country that has experienced a generally growing crime rate.