IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_2838.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Military Draft Discourage Enrollment in Higher Education? Evidence from OECD Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Katarina Keller
  • Panu Poutvaara
  • Andreas Wagener

Abstract

Using data from 1960-2000 for OECD countries, we analyze the impact of compulsory military service on the demand for higher education, measured by students enrolled in tertiary education as a share of the working-age population. Based on a theoretical model, we hypothesize that military draft has a negative effect on education. Empirically, we confirm this for the existence of conscription, albeit usually at low statistical significance. However, the intensity of its enforcement, measured by the share of the labor force conscripted by the military and the duration of service, significantly reduces enrollment in higher education.

Suggested Citation

  • Katarina Keller & Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2009. "Does Military Draft Discourage Enrollment in Higher Education? Evidence from OECD Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 2838, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2838
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp2838.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fisher, Anthony C, 1969. "The Cost of the Draft and the Cost of Ending the Draft," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 239-254, June.
    2. Imbens, Guido & van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 1995. "Evaluating the Cost of Conscription in The Netherlands," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 207-215, April.
    3. Piero Cipollone & Alfonso Rosolia, 2007. "Social Interactions in High School: Lessons from an Earthquake," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 948-965, June.
    4. Morten I. Lau & Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2004. "Dynamic Costs of the Draft," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 5(4), pages 381-406, November.
    5. Angrist, Joshua & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Why Do World War II Veterans Earn More Than Nonveterans?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 74-97, January.
    6. Angrist, Joshua D, 1990. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 313-336, June.
    7. W. Lee Hansen & Burton A. Weisbrod, 1967. "Economics of the Military Draft," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 81(3), pages 395-421.
    8. repec:bla:kyklos:v:22:y:1969:i:3:p:467-92 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Thomas Lemieux & David Card, 2001. "Going to College to Avoid the Draft: The Unintended Legacy of the Vietnam War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 97-102, May.
    10. Giorgio Pietro, 2013. "Military conscription and university enrolment: evidence from Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 619-644, April.
    11. Kunze, Astrid, 2002. "The Timing of Careers and Human Capital Depreciation," IZA Discussion Papers 509, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. World Bank, 2004. "World Development Indicators 2004," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13890.
    13. Warner, John T., 1995. "The economics of military manpower," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 347-398, Elsevier.
    14. John T. Warner & Beth J. Asch, 2001. "The Record and Prospects of the All-Volunteer Military in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 169-192, Spring.
    15. John Bound & Sarah Turner, 2002. "Going to War and Going to College: Did World War II and the G.I. Bill Increase Educational Attainment for Returning Veterans?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 784-815, October.
    16. Eric Maurin & Theodora Xenogiani, 2007. "Demand for Education and Labor Market Outcomes: Lessons from the Abolition of Compulsory Conscription in France," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(4).
    17. Angrist, Joshua D, 1990. "Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records: Errata," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1284-1286, December.
    18. Sandler,Todd & Hartley,Keith, 1995. "The Economics of Defense," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521447287, October.
    19. World Bank, 2003. "World Development Indicators 2003," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13920.
    20. Asch, Beth J. & Hosek, James R. & Warner, John T., 2007. "New Economics of Manpower in the Post-Cold War Era," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 32, pages 1075-1138, Elsevier.
    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. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso, 2012. "Can Compulsory Military Service Raise Civilian Wages? Evidence from the Peacetime Draft in Portugal," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 57-93, October.
    2. Henao, Leandro & Berens, Johannes & Schneider, Kerstin, 2023. "Tuition Fees and Academic (In)Activity in Higher Education: How Did Students Adjust to the Abolition of Tuition Fees in Germany?," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277578, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso, 2011. "Can Compulsory Military Service Increase Civilian Wages? Evidence from the Peacetime Draft in Portugal," NBER Working Papers 17694, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Antonella Biscione & Raul Caruso, 2021. "Military Expenditures and Income Inequality Evidence from a Panel of Transition Countries (1990-2015)," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 46-67, January.
    5. Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2011. "Ending Military Conscription," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 9(02), pages 36-43, July.
    6. repec:ces:ifodic:v:9:y:2011:i:2:p:16134080 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2014. "Do guns displace books? The impact of compulsory military service on educational attainment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 513-515.
    8. Frank Hubers & Dinand Webbink, 2015. "The long-term effects of military conscription on educational attainment and wages," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, December.
    9. repec:zbw:rwirep:0260 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2011. "Ending Military Conscription," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 9(2), pages 36-43, 07.
    11. Thomas K. Bauer & Stefan Bender & Alfredo R. Paloyo & Christoph M. Schmidt, 2011. "Do Guns Displace Books? – The Impact of Compulsory Military Service on Educational Attainment," Ruhr Economic Papers 0260, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.

    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. Katarina Keller & Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2010. "Does a Military Draft Discourage Enrollment in Higher Education?," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 66(2), pages 97-120, June.
    2. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2012. "Evaluating the labor-market effects of compulsory military service," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 814-829.
    3. Katarina Keller & Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2009. "Military Draft And Economic Growth In Oecd Countries," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 373-393, October.
    4. Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2011. "The Political Economy of Conscription," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Coyne & Rachel L. Mathers (ed.), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2014. "Do guns displace books? The impact of compulsory military service on educational attainment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 513-515.
    6. Frank Hubers & Dinand Webbink, 2015. "The long-term effects of military conscription on educational attainment and wages," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, December.
    7. Torun, Huzeyfe, 2019. "Ex-ante labor market effects of compulsory military service," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 90-110.
    8. Poutvaara, Panu & Wagener, Andreas, 2007. "To draft or not to draft? Inefficiency, generational incidence, and political economy of military conscription," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 975-987, December.
    9. Torun, Huzeyfe & Tumen, Semih, 2016. "The effects of compulsory military service exemption on education and labor market outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 16-35.
    10. Morten I. Lau & Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2004. "Dynamic Costs of the Draft," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 5(4), pages 381-406, November.
    11. Erik Grönqvist & Erik Lindqvist, 2016. "The Making of a Manager: Evidence from Military Officer Training," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 869-898.
    12. Giorgio Pietro, 2013. "Military conscription and university enrolment: evidence from Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 619-644, April.
    13. Pierre Mouganie, 2020. "Conscription and the Returns to Education: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 1112-1139, July.
    14. Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener, 2007. "Conscription: Economic costs and political allure," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 2(1), pages 6-15, January.
    15. Bingley, Paul & Lundborg, Petter & Vincent Lyk-Jensen, Stéphanie, 2014. "Opportunity Cost and the Incidence of a Draft Lottery," Working Papers 2014:10, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    16. Elena Kotyrlo & Elena Varshavskaya, 2022. "Impact of the compulsory military service reform of 2007–2008 on the demand for higher education," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 715-735, October.
    17. Paloyo, Alfredo R., 2010. "Compulsory Military Service in Germany Revisited," Ruhr Economic Papers 206, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    18. Grenet, Julien & Hart, Robert A. & Roberts, J. Elizabeth, 2011. "Above and beyond the call. Long-term real earnings effects of British male military conscription in the post-war years," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 194-204, April.
    19. Thomas Koch & Javier Birchenall, 2016. "Taking versus taxing: an analysis of conscription in a private information economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 177-199, June.
    20. Thomas K. Bauer & Stefan Bender & Alfredo R. Paloyo & Christoph M. Schmidt, 2011. "Do Guns Displace Books? – The Impact of Compulsory Military Service on Educational Attainment," Ruhr Economic Papers 0260, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    conscription; human capital;

    JEL classification:

    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

    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:ces:ceswps:_2838. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.