Full Citation

Title: Intrinsic Motivation and Performance: Jewish-American Soldiers in World War II

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2017

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Abstract: This paper assesses the potential influence of intrinsic motivation on individuals’ performance in the context of Jewish-American soldiers in World War II. In particular, it analyzes whether these soldiers performed differently when combating Germans as opposed to Japanese. Using medals, length of service, and medals per length of service as measures of performance and exploiting a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, it finds that Jewish soldiers, on average, received fewer medals in Europe than in the Pacific when compared to their non-Jewish counterparts. This effect is driven by the length of service, as Jewish soldiers, unlike non-Jewish ones, perished three months sooner in Europe than in the Pacific. As a consequence, there is no differential effect on the number of medals received per month of service among Jewish soldiers.

Url: https://web.stanford.edu/~cwaisman/caio_soldier.pdf

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Waisman, Caio

Publisher: Stanford University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Other, Race and Ethnicity

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