 U.S. war costs: Two parts temporary, one part permanentRyan Edwards () Journal of Public Economics, 2014, vol. 113, issue C, 54-66 Abstract: Military spending, fatalities, and the destruction of capital, all of which are immediately felt and are often large, are the most overt costs of war. They are also relatively short-lived. But the costs of war borne by combatants and their caretakers, which includes families, communities, and the modern welfare state, tend instead to be lifelong. In this paper I show that a significant component of the budgetary costs associated with U.S. wars is long-lived. One third to one half of the total present value of historical war costs are benefits distributed over the remaining life spans of veterans and their dependents. Even thirty years after the end of hostilities, typically half of all benefits remain to be paid. Estimates of the costs of injuries and deaths suggest that the private burden of war borne by survivors, namely the uncompensated costs of service-related injuries, are also large and long-lived. Keywords: National security; Budget forecasts; Value of life (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:113:y:2014:i:c:p:54-66 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.03.008 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
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