UCLA

The dissertation studies the influence of military mass mobilization on the top income shares in the society, and therefore on inequality levels, in the United States and Europe over the last one hundred years. More precisely, one of the main results in this work shows that when the individual external fighting effort in a conflict with another country is high, thus during military mass mobilization, then the internal fighting efforts for appropriation or rent seeking between rich and the rest of the society decrease, and in turn the inequality levels inside the society are lower. On the contrary, during periods of professional army, thus when the individual external fighting effort is low, then inside the society the internal fighting efforts for appropriation or rent seeking between rich and the rest of the society increase, and in turn the inequality levels increase. These implications are shown using models of inequality and conflict that are based on contest success functions. The dissertation also includes statistical evidence in support of the main hypothesis of this work. Several statistical tests are presented that show that periods of conscription are correlated with low levels of the top 1 and top 10 percent income shares using data over the last one hundred years. The dissertation ends with an analysis of the cases considered from North America and Western Europe. A comparative analysis and difference in difference method is employed to distinguish between different periods and systems.