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The Cold War and the U.S. Labor Market / Ilyana Kuziemko, Donato A. Onorato, Suresh Naidu.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Kuziemko, Ilyana.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w35008.
- NBER working paper series no. w35008
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2026.
- Summary:
- We argue that the Cold War contributed to the inclusive growth of the post-war decades. On the labor-demand side, we isolate exogenous shifts in military procurement across states and firms. We show that military procurement increases manufacturing employment and reduces inequality. Overall, the 1950s-to-1990s decline in defense production explains roughly one-quarter of the decline in manufacturing employment and nearly one-tenth of the rise of top-ten income share. On the labor-supply side, the Cold-War-era draft removed millions of young men from the labor force, significantly reducing young male civilian unemployment. Military procurement also increased voter support for hawkish foreign policy.
- Notes:
- March 2026.
- Print version record
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