Title: Can compulsory military service increase civilian wages?
Description: "Although military conscription was widespread during most of the past century, credible evidence on the effects of mandatory service is limited.  We provide new evidence on the long-term effects of peacetime conscription, using longitudinal data for Portuguese men born in 1967.  These men were inducted at a relatively late age (21), allowing us to use pre-conscription wages to control for ability differences between conscripts and non-conscripts.  We find that the average impact of military service for men who were working prior to age 21 is close to zero throughout the period from 2 to 20 years after their service.  These small average effects arise from a significant 4-5 percentage point impact for men with only primary education, coupled with a zero-effect for men with higher education.  The positive impacts for less-educated men suggest that mandatory service can be a valuable experience for those who might otherwise spend their careers in low-level jobs"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.