Allocation of recruiting resources across navy recruiting stations and metropolitan areas

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the effects of the geographic location of recruiters and recruiting facilities on Navy enlistment supply. Recent shortfalls in goal attainment have spurred the call for additional recruiting resources, especially recruiters, at the national level. Past research which has been conducted at the Navy Recruiting District level has shown this to be cost effective as a means of achieving recruiting goals. However, the allocation of these resources across the 31 Navy recruiting districts must be made based on the characteristics of each district, and recruiters must be placed in geographic locations where their contributions to goal attainment are the greatest. This research constructs Navy recruiting station and metropolitan area-level contract production models to estimate the effect of the geographic placement of recruiters and facilities. In addition, we address the issue of competition between Army and Navy recruiters. By estimating production models at lower levels of aggregation we are able to examine the relative effects of recruiters and facilities and to predict the most efficient allocation of these scarce resources.