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American Law and Economics Review 2005 7(1):85-111; doi:10.1093/aler/ahi009
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Law and Economics Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Conscription as Regulation

Casey B. Mulligan

University of Chicago and NBER

Andrei Shleifer

Harvard University and NBER

Send correspondence to: Andrei Shleifer, Harvard University, M9 Littauer Center, Cambridge, MA 02138; E-mail: ashleifer{at}harvard.edu.

We examine the practice of military conscription around the world from the perspective of two standard theories as well as a new one, which emphasizes the fixed cost of introducing and administering the draft as a deterrent to its use. We find that, holding the relative size of the military constant, higher population countries are more likely to use the draft. We also find that French legal origin countries, which we see as facing lower fixed and variable administrative costs, are more likely to draft than are common-law countries. Conscription does not seem to be influenced by democracy and is influenced by the deadweight costs of taxation only in countries with very large militaries. The results suggest that fixed costs of introducing and administering new regulations may be an important determinant of their use.


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