To Draft or Not to Draft? An Alternative View

Vesa Kanniainen, Staffan Ringbom

Research output: Book/ReportCommissioned report

Abstract

The paper reconsiders the relative efficiency of the draft versus the professional army in the case where countries belong to different risk classes. We refute the earlier result that the welfare with a draft is always lower than with a professional army. The welfare comparison is shown to depend on the national security determined by the risk class of the
country. The existence of the reserve strengthens the case for the draft army. We use Israel, Finland, and Sweden as examples of countries which belong to different risk classes with different approaches to the optimal national defense.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationHelsingfors
PublisherHECER - Helsinki Center of Economic Research
Volume2013
Number of pages13
Publication statusPublished - 2013
MoE publication typeD4 Published development or research report or study

Publication series

NameHECER Discussion Paper
No.370
ISSN (Print)1795-0562

Keywords

  • 511 Economics
  • national security, draft, professional army, education
  • KOTA2013
  • Equis Base Room

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