Self-Selection and Recruit Quality in Sweden’s All Volunteer Force: Do Civilian Opportunities Matter?

Peter Bäckström ()
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Peter Bäckström: Department of Economics, Umeå University, Postal: Department of Economics, Umeå University, S 901 87 Umeå, Sweden, https://www.umu.se/handelshogskolan

No 964, Umeå Economic Studies from Umeå University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies how local labour market conditions influence the quality composition of those who volunteer for military service in Swe- den. I estimate a fixed-effects regression model on a panel data set containing IQ scores for those who applied for military basic training across Swedish municipalities during the period 2010 to 2016. The main finding is that low civilian employment rates at the local level tend to increase the mean IQ score of those who volunteer for military service, whereas the opposite is true if employment rates in the civil- ian labour market move in a more favourable direction. As such, the results suggest that the negative impact of a strong civilian economy on recruitment volumes is reinforced by a deterioration in recruit quality.

Keywords: military labour market; military recruitment; self-selection; enlistment test; Roy model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H56 J01 J20 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2019-11-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lab
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