THE IDENTIFICATION OF ENEMY INTENTIONS THROUGH OBSERVATION OF LONG LEAD-TIME MILITARY PREPARATIONS

Intuitively, we would expect that an increase in the military preparations of potential enemies imply that the rival perceives an increase in the likelihood of future conflict. In this paper, we present a simple model that suggests that, surprisingly, the relationship is ambiguous. We find that (a) the specification of the social utility function; and (b) the rate of substitution between long and short lead-time preparations in the production of defense capability play a role in determining whether rivals respond to an increased future threat, by increasing or decreasing their long lead-time preparations.International Relations/Trade,

DEATH (MACHINES) AND TAXES

In the defense policy literature, it is widely believed that there is a pronounced bias towards the procurement of a less than optimal number of excessively sophisticated weapons. In this paper, we consider the possibility that this perceived bias is the result of the timing and informational structure of defense procurement decisions, and the inter-relationship of this structure with overall fiscal policy. Specifically, this paper presents a model that suggests that tax smoothing considerations of the type first articulated in Barro (1979) could lead social welfare maximizing decision makers to choose a higher level of weapon quality than would be optimal if government revenue could be raised without resort to distortionary taxation.Defense procurement, Weapon quality, Tax smoothing, Public Economics, H57,

Beyond Tax Smoothing

Analyses of optimal government capital structure generally follow Bohn (1990) and Barro (1995) in assuming risk neutrality or an exogenous risk premium. These analyses usually conclude that the optimal government capital structure stabilizes tax rates over time and states of nature to the greatest extent possible, something known as "tax smoothing." In this paper, we show that when an endogenous risk premium is introduced, the optimal government capital structure will no longer smooth tax rates. Under likely conditions, the optimal structure requires a larger short position in risky assets than that implied by tax smoothin

Military Reserves and Social Welfare

We consider the contribution of reserves to the efficient mobilization of military manpower. Our analysis suggests that offering recruits an option to serve as reservists enhances social welfare if there is a sufficiently strong relationship between recruit performance in the military and their expected civilian income

Probability Segmenting and the Social Cost of Draft Evasion

Economists generally believe that forcing young people to serve in the military is by definition a bad idea. Illustrating this, Lee and McKenzie (1992) reviewed twelve textbooks in basic economics and found that all twelve agreed that an all-volunteer military force (AVF) was inherently more efficient than conscription. In juxtaposition to this seeming consensus amongst economists, however, many countries retain conscription

Attitude, Aptitude, and Testing in the Efficient Mobilization of Military Manpower

Militaries commonly require recruits to pass a test that measures aptitude for military service. In this paper, we show that such tests may also act as a device for screening out low-motivation recruits, even if it is assumed that motivation is not measured by such tests and is not correlated with aptitude

Hard lessons: combat deployment and veteran interest in higher education

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2015.1105918Over 2.5 million Americans served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this short article, we consider the impact of these experiences on their future welfare. Specifically, we ask if those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq are more or less likely to exploit their GI Bill benefits in order to pursue higher education than service members who did not directly participate in these conflicts. We exploit a comprehensive administrative dataset that the US Armed Forces’ Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) provided to us. We find across models that deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq significantly increases the likelihood that veterans will take advantage of their educational benefits, but that exposure to violent combat significantly decreases it

Racial Selection in Deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2019.1685341The US Armed Forces officially desegregated in 1948. Over the following 70 years, the military has made great strides in promoting racial integration. We find evidence, however, that Black soldiers’ experience of military service still differs significantly from that of other racial and ethnic groups. Exploiting a database of administrative records for 100,000 Army personnel serving during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we find that Blacks were less likely than other service members to have deployed, or to face intense combat if deployed, during the early phases of the campaigns