This paper investigates the empirical relationship between inclusion and state capacity, 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...

Army cadets obtain occupations through a centralized process. Three objectives - increasing retention, aligning talent, and enhancing trust - have guided reforms to this process since 2006. West Point's mechanism for the Class of 2020 exacerbated challenges implementing Army policy aims. We...

This paper investigates whether judge political affiliation contributes to racial and gender disparities in sentencing using data on over 500,000 federal defendants linked to sentencing judge. Exploiting random case assignment, we find that Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants...

When investing in research and development (R&D), institutions must decide whether to take a top-down approach -- soliciting a particular technology -- or a bottom-up approach in which innovators suggest ideas. This paper examines a reform to the U.S. Air Force Small Business Innovation Research...

Excess body weight or body fat hinders performance of military duties. As a result, the U.S. military has weight-for-height and percent body fat standards for enlistment. This paper estimates the number and percent of military-age civilians who meet, and do not meet, the current active duty...

This study estimates the effect of deployment location and length on the risk of developing PTSD, relative to what it would be from the normal military operations. We use a random sample of activity-duty enlisted personnel serving between 2001 and 2006. We identify PTSD cases from TRICARE...

This paper uses the option value model of Stock and Wise to analyze the departure patterns of a sample of pilots in the United States Air Force. Pilot compensation and the military pension are described, as are some details of the option value model and two other models: the Annualized Cost of...

There is significant interest in understanding the labor market consequences of the opioid epidemic, but little is known about how opioid use impacts on-the-job productivity. We analyze the impact of opioid initiation in the emergency department (ED) on workforce outcomes in the Military using...

One explanation for insufficient use of primary care in the U.S. is a lack of trust between patients and providers - particularly along racial lines. We assess the role of racial concordance between patients and medical providers in driving use of preventive care and the implications for patient...