A model of U.S. Army recruit labor supply
By: Mark A. Wargelin
Contributors: Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.) 
Publisher: Naval Postgraduate School; Available from National Technical Information Service
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Monterey, Calif; Springfield, Va
Language: eng
Number of pages: 47
Description: In this thesis the author examines the military labor market and the effectiveness of the U.S. Army's enlistment      bonuses and enhanced educational benefits of the Army College Fund on the recruit's labor decision. This paper      reviews previous military manpower research and critically examines two recruit labor supply experiments the      Multiple Option Recruiting Experiment of 1979, and the Educational Assistance Test Program of 1981.      Microeconomic principles of utility maximization are used to model U.S. Army recruiter objectives and behavior      as a constrained optimization of the recruiters' utility function subject to a labor supply or production possibility      frontier constraint. The reduced form model is a simultaneous system of lagged equations which are estimated      using a generalized least-squares technique. To evaluate the effectiveness of recruiting incentives, estimates are      obtained of the elasticities of high- quality male enlistments with respect to the Army College Fund and the      enlistment bonuses. The results show that these programs are successful in attracting high quality male recruits to      achieve and maintain desired force levels.
Notes: "September 1997."

Thesis advisor(s): Dan C. Boger.

Thesis (M.S. in Operations Research) Naval Postgraduate School, September 1997.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-46)

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited.

Also available online.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements: Adobe Acrobat reader.

US Navy (USN) author.

dk/dk cc:9116 04/28/98.