This paper asks how U.S. military procurement during World War II affected state-level macroeconomic outcomes, using newly digitized contract records for 1940–1945 to estimate short-run multipliers and employment impacts. The study provides state-by-state evidence on personal income responses to wartime spending and reports estimates of multiplier magnitudes, implied costs per job-year, and a pattern the author calls negative scale effects.
newly digitized contract data personal income multipliers of 0.34–0.49 evidence of negative scale effects
Data and methods
The analysis uses newly digitized contract data on U.S. war production spending over 1940–1945 at the state level. The abstract reports estimation of income multipliers over two- and three-year horizons and employment effects; it does not detail the identification strategy or full model specification in the abstract, so readers should consult the full paper or data deposit for design and robustness checks.
Main findings
The author reports personal income multipliers of 0.34 over two years and 0.49 over three years. The abstract notes that these personal income multipliers may understate gross domestic product multipliers by as much as about 50%. Employment estimates are summarized as high implied costs per job-year (converted to 2015 dollars) and the author concludes that job creation from wartime contracts was limited.
- Reported two- and three-year personal income multipliers: 0.34 and 0.49.
- Employment implications presented as cost per job-year (2015 dollars) and described as suggesting limited job creation.
Additional note
The abstract also reports a pattern of "negative scale effects": larger positive spending shocks are associated with systematically smaller multiplier estimates. The abstract provides these headline estimates and qualifiers but does not supply detailed inference, heterogeneity analyses, or specification checks within the abstract itself; consult the article and linked dataset for full methods and replication materials.
