The U.S. Economy in WWII as a Model for Coping with Climate Change

Hugh Rockoff

Departmental Working Papers from Rutgers University, Department of Economics

Abstract: During World War II the United States rapidly transformed its economy to cope with a wide range of scarcities, such as shortfalls in the amounts of ocean shipping, aluminum, rubber, and other raw materials needed for the war effort. This paper explores the mobilization to see whether it provides lessons about how the economy could be transformed to meet scarcities produced by climate change or other environmental challenges. It concludes that the success of the United States in overcoming scarcities during World War II without a major deterioration in living standards provides a basis for optimism that environmental challenges can be met, but that the unique political consensus that prevailed during the war limits the practical usefulness of the wartime model.

Keywords: World War II; Climate Change; Infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2016-08-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-his and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sas.rutgers.edu/virtual/snde/wp/2016-09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The U.S. Economy in WWII as a Model for Coping with Climate Change (2016)
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:rut:rutres:201609

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Departmental Working Papers from Rutgers University, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().