Volume 22, Number 1 (Winter) 1987
Goldberg, Matthew S. and John T. Warner. 1987. "Military Experience, Civilian Experience, and the Earnings of Veterans." Journal of Human Resources 22(1):62-81.
This paper examines the effects of military experience and civilian experience on the earnings of veterans with the objective of determining the substitutability of these two forms of experience for personnel receiving different types of military training. To perform the analysis, the Social Security earnings records of 24,000 individuals who separated from military service in fiscal year 1971 were obtained for the period 1972-77. Analysis of these data reveals that more military experience does increase subsequent civilian earnings, but that the relative impact of military and civilian experience varies considerably by military occupation category.
Goldberg is a research analyst for the Center for Naval Analyses. Warner is an associate professor of economics at Clemson University. The work reported herein was funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under contract number NOOOI4-80-C-0664. The authors sincerely thank Jane Crotser and Mike Dove of the Defense Manpower Data Center and Warren Buckler of the Social Security Administration for their help in assembling the data set used in this study. They also thank Lung-Fei Lee, Robert Trost, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on previous drafts. The usual disclaimers apply.
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