The defence sector in British regional development

The aim of the paper is to provide an outline of the influence of defence expenditure on British regional development during the last one hundred years. This topic has not received much attention since defence expenditure on the armed forces is usually considered non-basic, whilst expenditure on equipment is concealed amongst many industries. There are also important spin-off effects from this expenditure. The paper shows that defence expenditure favours southern and eastern regions of Britain and thus reinforces spatial trends from other sectors of the British economy. In addition to these regional effects there are significant impacts on local economies.