The arsenal of democracy: Production and politics during WWII

Paul Rhode, Snyder, Jr., James M. and Koleman Strumpf

Journal of Public Economics, 2018, vol. 166, issue C, 145-161

Abstract: We study the geographic distribution of military supply contracts during World War II. This is a unique case, where $3 trillion current day dollars was spent. We find robust evidence consistent with the hypothesis that economic factors dominated the allocation of supply contracts, and that political factors—or at least winning the 1944 presidential election—were at best of secondary importance. General industrial capacity in 1939, as well as specialized industrial capacity for aircraft production, are strong predictors of contract spending across states. Electoral college pivot probabilities are weak predictors of contract (and new facilities) spending, and under the most plausible assumptions they are essentially unrelated to spending. This is true over the entire period 1940–1944, and also for shorter periods leading up to the election in November 1944. That is, we find no evidence of an electoral cycle in the distribution of funds.

Keywords: Distributive politics; Government spending; Presidential elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272718301543
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Arsenal of Democracy: Production and Politics During WWII (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:166:y:2018:i:c:p:145-161

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.08.010

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
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().