TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Rohlfs, Chris
AU  - Sullivan, Ryan
AU  - Kniesner, Thomas J.
        TI  - Reducing Risks in Wartime Through Capital-Labor Substitution: Evidence from World War II
        PY  - 2015/Aug/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 9260
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp9260
        AB  - 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 figure 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, relative to the efficient $1 million to $2 million 1940s-era private value of life. We find that the reorganizations of the armored and airborne divisions both increased efficiency, one by reducing costs with little increase in fatalities and the other by reducing fatalities with little increase in costs.
        KW  - military capital-labor substitution
KW  - military cost functions
KW  - World War II
KW  - cost of saving lives
KW  - European theater of operation
        ER  -