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Pecuniary Incentives to Work in the U.S. during World War II

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  • Casey B. Mulligan

Abstract

It is argued that changes in workers' budget sets cannot explain the dramatic increases in" civilian work in the U.S. during World War II. Although money wages grew during the period wartime after-tax real wages were lower than either before or after the war. Evidence from the" 1940's also appears to be inconsistent with other pecuniary explanations such as wealth effects of" government policies, intertemporal substitution induced by asset prices and changes in the nonmarket price of time. Although untested and relatively undeveloped nonpecuniary models of behavior are tempting explanations for wartime work."

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6326.

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Date of creation: Dec 1997
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Publication status: published as Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 106, no. 5 (October 1998): 1033-1077.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6326
Note: ME
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Cited by:

  1. Gary S. Becker & Casey B. Mulligan, 1998. "Deadweight Costs and the Size of Government," University of Chicago - George G. Stigler Center for Study of Economy and State 144, Chicago - Center for Study of Economy and State.
  2. Mulligan Casey B, 2001. "Aggregate Implications of Indivisible Labor," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-35, April.
  3. Robert J. Barro, 2005. "Rare Events and the Equity Premium," NBER Working Papers 11310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Casey B. Mulligan, 1998. "Microfoundations and macro implications of indivisible labor," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 126, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

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