Hierarchies and the Survival of Prisoners of War During World War II

Clifford G. Holderness () and Jeffrey Pontiff ()
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Clifford G. Holderness: Finance Department, Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467
Jeffrey Pontiff: Finance Department, Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467

Management Science, 2012, vol. 58, issue 10, 1873-1886

Abstract: Using a comprehensive database of American prisoners of war during World War II, we find that survival from captivity generally declines as the hierarchy of a prisoner's group becomes steeper or more closely matches the military's established hierarchy. There is no evidence that survival is enhanced by being held in more hierarchical groups. One interpretation of these findings that is consistent with survivors' accounts is that the military's hierarchy was too inflexible to adapt from the battlefield to captivity and this inflexibility impeded trading among the prisoners. This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, finance.

Keywords: hierarchy; markets; centralization; decentralization; organizational structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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