We study the geographic distribution of military supply contracts during World War II. This is a unique case, since over $3 trillion current day dollars was spent, and there were concerns that the country's future hinged on the war outcome. We find robust evidence consistent with the hypothesis...

Over the past decade, Turkey’s defence industry has undergone rapid development and its products have repeatedly proved their military capability. The Bayraktar-TB2 drone - a product of the Turkish manufacturer Baykar - is exported to numerous countries. In Ukraine, it is being used...

Russia's fullscale invasion of Ukraine since 24 February 2022 has not shaken France's security policy as fundamentally as it has Germany's. France sees its previous goals confirmed, particularly in terms of strengthening Europe's strategic sovereignty. Nevertheless, it has been adapting in many...

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony in June after being sworn in for the third time as the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised the nation that his policies in the coming five years would "crown the second century of the republic with the Century of Türkiye". Turkey has...

In the US and many other OECD countries, expenditures for defense-related R&D represent a key policy channel through which governments shape innovation, and dwarf all other public subsidies for innovation. We examine the impact of government funding for R&D - and defense-related R&D in...

Observations on munition workers are organized to examine the relationship between their output each week, their working hours and days each week, and their working hours and days in adjacent weeks. The hypothesis is that workers need to recover from work and a long working week results in...

Between mid-1939 and mid-1943 almost 2.2 million additional women were recruited into Britain's essential war industries. These consisted, predominantly, of young women recruited into metal and chemical industries. Much of the increased labour supply was achieved through government directed...

U.S. manufacturing firms that make sophisticated weapons systems for the Pentagon are subject to an unusual regulatory regime that obligates them to volunteer' information on their business practices to the government and to prime contractors as a condition of their special relationship with the...

We study the relationship between market structure and public procurement outcomes. In particular, we ask whether and to what extent consolidation-driven increases in industry concentration affect the way in which the government procures its goods and services. We focus on the defense industry,...