Conscription and the Developing Countries
43 Pages Posted: 1 Apr 2017
Date Written: April 1, 2017
Abstract
Many countries, mostly ones with developing economies, still have conscription. This study explains why, based on the costs of different recruitment systems. A conscription system misallocates labor compared to all-volunteer recruitment but entails a smaller wage bill. In developing countries, the costs of establishing a conscription system may be large, but the excess burden of taxes needed to finance the higher wage bill of an all-volunteer military are likely to be greater. These considerations, based on cross-country regression analysis, partly explain why many developing countries continue to impose conscription even as the developed countries seem to be abandoning it.
Keywords: conscription, tax systems in developing countries
JEL Classification: H20, H21, O17
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation