Research for Research Contributions

All branches of the Armed Services use the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to measure the mental aptitudes of prospective recruits. New forms of ASVAB are introduced periodically. Before new forms are introduced they must be normalized (i.e., the proper relationship must be established between the number of questions answered correctly and a standard score scale). This process ensures that a certain score on the new forms represents the same ability level as that same score on previous forms of the test. This report documents our analysis of the normalization of ASVAB forms 8, 9, and 10.

The virtues and criticisms of the current military retirement system are described. Then an economic model is developed for analyzing the effects of different retirement systems on retention. The model also can be used to analyze other kinds of changes to the military compensation system. Here it is used to estimate the effects of three retirement plans on enlisted retention and force structure: (1) a two-tier plan that reduces annuities after 20 years of service, (2) a trust fund plan recommended by the President's Commission on Military Compensation that provides some benefits after 10 years but fewer after 20 years, and (3) a two-tier plan recommended by the Secretary of Defense that allows early withdrawal of prospective 20-year benefits after 10 years of service.

The first-term retention gain from exploiting rating-specified survival probabilities when assigning recruits to ratings is assessed. The reassignment of 28,000 recruits to 37 ratings under the same conditions faced in the original assignment is simulated. A sizeable gain in first-term retention rate is demonstrated.

ENREP projects enlisted manpower requirements by rating and paygrade for any given set of ship and aircraft force levels for the 15 years covered by the POM and EPA. It adds the dimension of quality of personnel to projections of requirements and can be used to assess the effects of alternative force mixes and manning policies on requirements. ENREP draws figures for ship and aircraft forces and their corresponding manning factors from the Navy Resource Model (NARM), and a normalized distribution of ratings and paygrades from Enlisted Billet File. The user can override these inputs and moreover change the assumptions of the projection.