Occupational Fatalities and the Labor Supply: Evidence from the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

•Death of US soldiers decrease recruiting in their home county by over 1 percent.•Deaths of US soldiers can increase recruiting in certain counties.•Behavioral models may be necessary to explain military recruiting.

I find that full information utility maximization models are insufficient to explain the recruiting response to deaths of US soldiers in recent years. Using data of all applicants to the enlisted US military during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, deaths had a small but significant deterrent effect on recruiting in the soldiers' home counties. The deterrent is larger for deaths from the same county than for deaths from neighboring counties or for out of county but in state deaths. The effect exhibits significant heterogeneity: deaths in Iraq decrease recruiting, while deaths in Afghanistan may increase recruiting, and the deterrent is more negative in less populous and more racially diverse counties; it is smaller or even positive in counties that voted for George W. Bush.