THE EFFECT OF MILITARY EXPENDITURES ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX AND GROWTH: BOOTSTRAP PANEL CAUSALITY ANALYSIS Mehmet SANDAL 1 , Kubilay Çağrı YILMAZ 2 INTRODUCTION While military spending should account for the majority of public spending in the context of security, the “guns or butter” dilemma, which represents the opportunity cost of spending (Luqman and Antonakakis, 2021), is a problem that is frequently addressed in both developed and developing countries. One of the main reasons for this is that when it comes to military spending, decisions are made based on probability and in the context of the security problem (Jervis, 1978). Other sectors, however, which are overwhelmed by expenditures, are unavoidably subject to negative externalities. The public expenditure dynamics of the countries are at the forefront of the equations that 1 Res. Assist. Dr., Manisa Celal Bayar University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Econometrics, MANİSA, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7396- 0801, mehmet.sandal@cbu.edu.tr 2 Assist. Prof. Dr., Manisa Celal Bayar University, Faculty of Business, Economics and Finance, MANİSA. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2489-9968, kubilayc.yilmaz@gmail. com