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State Capacity and Discrimination: WWII U.S. Army Enlistment

By: Nancy Qian and Marco Tabellini
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:59
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Abstract

This paper documents that disenfranchisement and discrimination discouraged WWII volunteer military participation of African American men, relative to Caucasian men, after the Pearl Harbor attack. The race-gap in volunteer enlistment is most pronounced in regions where discrimination was particularly severe. There is no gap in draft enlistment anywhere. Consistent with the notion that disenfranchisement and discrimination discourage military participation, we document that forcibly interred Japanese Americans were much less likely to serve in the U.S. military than those not interred.

Keywords

World War II; Military Enlistment; War; Race; Prejudice and Bias; United States

Citation

Qian, Nancy, and Marco Tabellini. "State Capacity and Discrimination: WWII U.S. Army Enlistment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-005, July 2020. (Revised April 2021. Available also from KelloggInsight and HBS Working Knowledge.)

About The Author

Marco E. Tabellini

Business, Government and the International Economy
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