Army Enlistment Early Warning System

摘要

The Army adds recruiting resources too slowly during economic expansions and over-budgets during recessions. This leads to accession crises and waste. An alternative is Crisis Prevention Management, which uses forecasts of enlistments to allocate resources as needed over the business cycle. To provide the forecasts, we constructed an Enlistment Early Warning System (EEWS) for the Army. Each month the EEWS forecasts enlistment contracts over the next year. Forecasts are based on time-series models estimated with national monthly- level data. Validation tests show the forecasts are extremely accurate. To test the sensitivity of the methodology, we also developed and validated models for the other military services. The Army is now using the EEWS to help manage recruiting incentive programs and to estimate the effects on enlistments of the economy, policy changes, and 'shocks' such as the September 11th terrorist attacks.