Working Paper: NBER ID: w21371
Authors: Filipe Campante; David Yanagizawa-Drott
Abstract: We study whether war service by one generation affects service by the next generation in later wars, in the context of the major US theaters of the 20th century. To identify a causal effect, we exploit the fact that general suitability for service implies that how close to age 21 an individual’s father happened to be at a time of war is a key determinant of the father’s likelihood of participation. We find that a father’s war service experience has a positive and significant effect on his son’s likelihood of service. We estimate an intergenerational transmission parameter of approximately 0.1, across all wars, and that each individual war had a substantial impact on service in those that followed. We find evidence consistent with cultural transmission of war service from fathers to sons, and with the presence of substitutability between this direct transmission and oblique transmission (from society at large). In contrast, father’s war service increases sons’ educational achievement and actually reduces the likelihood of military service outside of wartime, suggesting that the results cannot be explained by material incentives or broader occupational choice. Taken together, our results indicate that a history of wars helps countries overcome the collective action problem of getting citizens to volunteer for war service.
Keywords: intergenerational transmission; war service; cultural transmission
JEL Codes: D74; D90; J12; J13; Z10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Father's war service (H56) | Son's beliefs and attitudes towards war service (H56) |
| Father's war service (H56) | Son's educational achievements (I24) |
| Son's educational achievements (I24) | Son's likelihood of military service outside of wartime (H56) |
| Father's war service (H56) | Collective action problem of recruiting citizens for military service (H56) |
| Father's war service (H56) | Son's likelihood of service in later wars (H56) |