Reducing risks in wartime through capital-labor substitution: Evidence from World War II

摘要

Our research uses data from multiple archival sources to examine substitution among armored (tank-intensive), infantry (troop-intensive), and airborne (also troop-intensive) military units, as well as mid-war reorganizations of each type, to estimate the marginal cost of reducing U.S. fatalities in World War II, holding constant mission effectiveness, usage intensity, and task difficulty. If the government acted as though it equated marginal benefits and costs, the marginal cost measures the implicit value placed on soldiers' lives. Our preferred estimates indicate that infantrymen's lives were valued in 2009 dollars between $0 and $0.5 million and armored troops' lives were valued between $2 million and $6 million, versus the efficient $1 million to $2 million 1940s-era private value of life. Reorganizations of the armored and airborne