Can Stimulating Demand Drive Costs Down? World War II as a Natural Experiment
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) François Lafond, University of Oxford; Diana S. Greenwald, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; J. Doyne Farmer, University of Oxford
Version: View help for Version V1
| Name | File Type | Size | Last Modified |
|---|---|---|---|
| WWII_replication | 05/21/2022 08:13:AM |
Project Citation:
Lafond, François, Greenwald, Diana S., and Farmer, J. Doyne. Can Stimulating Demand Drive Costs Down? World War II as a Natural Experiment. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-05-21. https://doi.org/10.3886/E170901V1
Project Description
Summary:
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This is the replication package for Can Stimulating Demand Drive Costs Down? World War II as a Natural Experiment. U.S. military production during World War II increased at an impressive rate and led to large declines in unit costs. However, the literature has focused on elucidating detailed mechanisms behind this relationship, using small datasets on specific products. Here we take a step back and, looking at an unprecedently large collection of data, we show that both exogenous technological progress and endogenous effects from increasing production experience were important, in roughly similar proportions. The demand for military products was largely exogenous, and the correlation between production, cumulative production, and time was weak, limiting issues of reverse causality and multicollinearity.
Scope of Project
Subject Terms:
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Military production during WWII
Geographic Coverage:
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United States
Time Period(s):
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1/1/1939 – 12/31/1945 (World War II)
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