Reducing risks in wartime through capital-labor substitution: Evidence from World War II

Chris Rohlfs, Ryan Sullivan () and Thomas Kniesner
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Chris Rohlfs: Morgan Stanley
Ryan Sullivan: U.S. Naval Postgraduate School

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 2016, vol. 52, issue 2, No 4, 163-190

Abstract: Abstract 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 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, versus the efficient $1 million to $2 million 1940s-era private value of life. 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.

Keywords: Value of a statistical life (VSL); Military; World War II; Capital-labor substitution; Fatality risk; Cost-benefit analysis; H56; J17; N42; D24; J24; L11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: Reducing Risks in Wartime Through Capital-Labor Substitution: Evidence from World War II (2015)
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DOI: 10.1007/s11166-016-9238-7

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