Meta analysis on high quality recruiting enlistments

Abstract

The success of the U. S. military recruiting depends not only on recruiting efforts but also on the labor market conditions. In this thesis, the econometric literature of military recruiting analysis based on historical data from FY81 to FY89 is reviewed. The random effects meta analysis models are used to examine the systematic variation in high quality enlistment elasticities obtained over different studies with respect to advertising, recruiter forces, and unemployment rate, respectively. Tlie results of the meta analysis show that (1) the Army advertising turns out to be more effective than that of the other military services; (2) the models with the recruiting goal factor tend to have significantly smaller recruiting elasticities with respect to advertising and recruiter forces than their counterpart; (3) the unemployment rate elasticities do not vary significantly over different studies; (4) the Army advertising elasticity on the high quality contract is relatively low compared to the unemployment rate and the recruiter elasticities; (5) in terms of cost, the military expenditure for the recruiters appears to be more cost-effective in producing quality recruits than advertising expenditure, when the cumulative long-run effects for advertising were ignored. These findings are expected to give some insights into future military recruiting.