An Empirical Study of the U.S. Army Recruitment Rate

The purpose of this empirical study is to identify the key determinants of the United States Army recruitment rate.  The model is a time series framework covering the years 1980 through 2005.  The estimate adopts the ordinary least squares procedure, with Newey-West heteroskedasticity corrected standard errors (and t-values).  The results imply that the Army recruitment rate, recruits as a percent of the eligible population, is an increasing function of the percent of the population without health insurance, the percent of the population who are military veterans, the Presidential approval rating, a dummy variable for when a republican or democrat was in office, and a dummy variable for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.  The Army recruitment rate was found to be inversely related to a dummy variable that was used for the time the country was in a war and the percent changes in real gross domestic product.