"Discrimination and State Capacity: Evidence from WWII U.S. Army Enlistment."

Citation:

Qian, Nancy, and Marco Tabellini. 2022. “"Discrimination and State Capacity: Evidence from WWII U.S. Army Enlistment."” Political Institutions and Economic Policy (PIEP). Cambridge, MA. Copy at http://www.tinyurl.com/yobedftn
qiantab_2022317.pdf3.71 MB

Abstract:

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between inclusion and state ca- pacity, as theorized by Besley and Persson (2009). We examine the impact of racial discrimination on Black U.S. military enlistment during the onset of WWII. We find that discrimination had a large and negative effect on volunteer enlistment after the Pearl Harbor attack. The result is robust to a large number of controls that account for potential confounders. The negative effect of discrimination is moderated by geograph- ical proximity to Pearl Harbor, and is larger for educated men. We provide consistent evidence for Japanese Americans.