Discrimination and State Capacity: Evidence from WWII U.S. Army Enlistment

This paper investigates the empirical relationship between inclusion and state capacity. We examine the impact of racial discrimination on Black U.S. military enlistment during the onset of WWII. We find that discrimination had a large and negative effect on volunteer enlistment after the Pearl Harbor attack. The result is robust to a large number of controls that account for potential confounders. The negative effect of discrimination is moderated by geographical proximity to Pearl Harbor, and is larger for educated men. We provide consistent evidence for Japanese Americans.

Nancy Qian is the James J. O'Connor Professor at Kellogg MEDS and the founding director of China Lab, a part of Northwestern's Global Poverty Research Lab. She is a native of Shanghai, China, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. Prior to Kellogg, Professor Qian taught at Yale University and Brown University, and was a post-doctoral fellow of the prestigious Harvard Academy Scholars program.

Discussant: Steven White, Assistant Professor, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University

*Political Institutions and Political Economy