Studies of the development of local economies often point to large-scale World War II military spending as a source of long-term economic growth, even though the spending declined sharply after the demobilization. We examine the longer term impact of the temporary war spending on county economies using a variety of measures of socioeconomic activity: including per capita retail sales, the extent of manufacturing, population growth, the share of women in the work force, housing values and ownership, and per capita savings over the period 1940-1950. We find that in the longer term counties receiving more war spending per capita during the war experienced extensive growth due to increases in population but not intensive growth, as the war spending had very small impacts on per capita measures of economic activity.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
12801.
Length: Date of creation: Dec 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12801
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General N32 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913- N42 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913- N92 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913- R11 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Analysis of Growth, Development, and Changes
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