The Time is Now: Proposals for Two Enlistment Incentive Experiments

When Congress initiated Enlistment Bonuses (EBs) in the early 1980s, it required the Department of Defense to conduct experiments on how these incentives affect recruiting. More recently, the only policy guidance for those who set enlistment incentives has come from analyses based on nonexperimental data. These analyses have employed widely recognized statistical estimators and, in many instances, have produced findings that seem both plausible and precise. Unfortunately, the statistical estimators used in these works have significant potential for bias when they are applied to nonexperimental data. This analysis describes several of the estimation problems that arise from using nonexperimental data to analyze the effects of enlistment incentives, discusses some of the econometric tools that researchers have used in their attempts to overcome these problems, and indicates the shortcomings of these tools. It also argues that the potential for estimation bias in these works is so severe that the Services should view the results from the recent analyses as inconclusive. Finally, the study proposes two experiments the Navy could undertake that would reveal important information about enlistment incentives, that would be low cost, and that would not hamper the Service’s ability to meet its accession goals.