Can Stimulating Demand Drive Costs Down? World War II as a Natural Experiment

IF 2.5 1区 历史学 Q2 ECONOMICS
François Lafond, Diana Greenwald, J. Doyne Farmer
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引用次数: 3

Abstract

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.

刺激需求能降低成本吗?作为自然实验的第二次世界大战
第二次世界大战期间,美国的军事生产以惊人的速度增长,导致单位成本大幅下降。然而,文献集中于阐明这种关系背后的详细机制,使用特定产品的小数据集。在这里,我们退后一步,看看前所未有的大量数据,我们表明外生技术进步和生产经验增加的内生效应都很重要,比例大致相似。军用产品的需求很大程度上是外生的,生产、累积生产和时间之间的相关性很弱,限制了反向因果关系和多重共线性的问题。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
2.80
自引率
4.80%
发文量
38
期刊介绍: The Journal of Economic History is devoted to the multidisciplinary study of history and economics, and is of interest not only to economic historians but to social and demographic historians, as well as economists in general. The journal has broad coverage, in terms of both methodology and geographic scope. Topics covered include money and banking, trade, manufacturing, technology, transportation, industrial organisation, labour, agriculture, servitude, demography, education, economic growth, and the role of government and regulation. In addition, an extensive book review section keeps readers informed about the latest work in economic history and related fields.
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