IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jhucap/doi10.1086-668863.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why We Fight: Understanding Military Participation over the Life Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • David R. Mann

Abstract

Looming reductions in military spending have sparked great interest in how military personnel respond to the incentives they face. This paper specifies a dynamic career decision model that includes military service options to understand how human capital, compensation, the business cycle, and combat risk affect the military labor supply. The model is estimated using data on males from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Experimental results show that the military wage elasticity of military participation is 3 percent, entering the workforce during an adverse business cycle state increases military participation by 3 percent, and combat death risk strongly affects military participation.

Suggested Citation

  • David R. Mann, 2012. "Why We Fight: Understanding Military Participation over the Life Cycle," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(4), pages 279-315.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/668863
    DOI: 10.1086/668863
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/668863
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/668863
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/668863?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heckman, James & Singer, Burton, 1984. "A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 271-320, March.
    2. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    3. Isaac Ehrlich & Yong Yin, 2005. "Explaining Diversities in Age-Specific Life Expectancies and Values of Life Saving: A Numerical Analysis," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 129-162, September.
    4. Richard Bellman, 1957. "On a Dynamic Programming Approach to the Caterer Problem--I," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 270-278, April.
    5. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    6. Meredith A. Kleykamp, 2006. "College, Jobs, or the Military? Enlistment During a Time of War," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(2), pages 272-290, June.
    7. Barry T. Hirsch & Stephen L. Mehay, 2003. "Evaluating the Labor Market Performance of Veterans Using a Matched Comparison Group Design," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(3).
    8. Joshua D. Angrist, 1998. "Estimating the Labor Market Impact of Voluntary Military Service Using Social Security Data on Military Applicants," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(2), pages 249-288, March.
    9. Zvi Eckstein & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 1999. "Why Youths Drop Out of High School: The Impact of Preferences, Opportunities, and Abilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(6), pages 1295-1340, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pinka Chatterji & Xiangshi Liu & Barış K. Yörük, 2019. "Effects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act Dependent Care Provision on Military Participation Among Young Adults," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(1), pages 87-111, January.
    2. Glaser, Darrell J. & Rahman, Ahmed S., 2023. "Between the dockyard and the deep blue sea—Retention and personnel economics in the Royal Navy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    3. Asoni, Andrea & Sanandaji, Tino, 2013. "Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Fight? Socioeconomic Representativeness in the Modern Military," Working Paper Series 965, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 16 Dec 2014.
    4. Ryan D. Edwards, 2015. "Overseas Deployment, Combat Exposure, and Well-Being in the 2010 National Survey of Veterans," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 64-93.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dos Santos Marcelo Rodrigues, 2012. "Human Capital Formation and Criminal Behavior: The Role of Early Childhood Education," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-26, September.
    2. Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2011. "The Effects of Health Insurance and Self‐Insurance on Retirement Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 693-732, May.
    3. Jonathan L. Willis, 2000. "Estimation of adjustment costs in a model of state-dependent pricing," Research Working Paper RWP 00-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    4. Juanna Schrøter Joensen, 2010. "Timing and Incentives: Impacts of Student Aid on Academic Achievement," 2010 Meeting Papers 823, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Yongyang Cai & Thomas S. Lontzek, 2019. "The Social Cost of Carbon with Economic and Climate Risks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2684-2734.
    6. Gamba, Andrea & Tesser, Matteo, 2009. "Structural estimation of real options models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 798-816, April.
    7. Cohen-Goldner, Sarit & Eckstein, Zvi, 2010. "Estimating the return to training and occupational experience: The case of female immigrants," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 156(1), pages 86-105, May.
    8. Italo Lopez Garcia, 2015. "Human Capital and Labor Informality in Chile A Life-Cycle Approach," Working Papers WR-1087, RAND Corporation.
    9. Giuseppe Fiori & Filippo Scoccianti, 2021. "Aggregate dynamics and microeconomic heterogeneity: the role of vintage technology," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 651, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Hiroyuki Kasahara & Katsumi Shimotsu, 2006. "Nested Pseudo-likelihood Estimation And Bootstrap-based Inference For Structural Discrete Markov Decision Models," Working Paper 1063, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    11. Yongyang Cai & Kenneth Judd & Jevgenijs Steinbuks, 2017. "A nonlinear certainty equivalent approximation method for dynamic stochastic problems," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(1), pages 117-147, March.
    12. Ayan, Davut, 2016. "Unemployment Among the Recent U.S. Veterans," MPRA Paper 117307, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Kemptner, Daniel & Tolan, Songül, 2018. "The role of time preferences in educational decision making," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 25-39.
    14. Nakashima, Kiyotaka & Ogawa, Toshiaki, 2020. "The Impacts of Strengthening Regulatory Surveillance on Bank Behavior: A Dynamic Analysis from Incomplete to Complete Enforcement of Capital Regulation in Microprudential Policy," MPRA Paper 99938, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Laczó, Sarolta & Rossi, Raffaele, 2020. "Time-consistent consumption taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 194-220.
    16. Pratap, Sangeeta & Urrutia, Carlos, 2004. "Firm dynamics, investment and debt portfolio: balance sheet effects of the Mexican crisis of 1994," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 535-563, December.
    17. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    18. Rodolphe Dos Santos Ferreira & Frédéric Dufourt, 2013. "On Stabilization Policy in Sunspot-Driven Oligopolistic Economies," AMSE Working Papers 1337, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised 30 Jun 2013.
    19. Matteo Iacoviello, 2008. "Household Debt and Income Inequality, 1963–2003," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(5), pages 929-965, August.
    20. Aldrich, Eric M. & Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Ronald Gallant, A. & Rubio-Ramírez, Juan F., 2011. "Tapping the supercomputer under your desk: Solving dynamic equilibrium models with graphics processors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 386-393, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/668863. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JHC .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.