Gallantry in Action: Evidence of Advantageous Selection in a Voluntary Army

Publicado en

• Journal of Law and Economics

Resumen

• A voluntary army's quality exceeds or falls below a drafted army's average quality depending on whether selection is advantageous or adverse. Using a collection of data sets that cover the majority of the US Army soldiers during World War II, we test for adverse selection into the army. Rather, we find advantageous selection: volunteers and drafted men showed no significant difference in fatalities, but volunteers earned distinguished awards at a higher rate than drafted men, particularly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Analyses at the level of units concur with our findings based on enlistment records.

autores

• Birchenall, Javier
• Koch, Thomas G.

fecha de publicación

• 2015

Enfoque geográfico

• North America  Continent
• United States of America  Country

Página inicial

• 111

Última página

• 138

Volumen

• 58

Issue

• 1