Some fundamental properties of governmental expenditure patterns — Theory and evidence based on military expenditures

This paper shows that governmental defense expenditure patterns can be accurately modeled by the use of graph curves. This modeling is applicable to both individual weapon systems and entire military treasury code cost categories. The application of this model to the complete Air Force expenditure process suggests a fundamental theory of expenditures which should allow the forecasting of aggregate military defense expenditures in the presence of very sparse data.