U.S. Military Production and Unit Costs During World War II

This dataset supports an analysis of U.S. military production during World War II, examining the relationship between production scale and unit cost declines. It is described as an unprecedentedly large collection of data, compiled by author François Lafond. The data is used to quantify the roles of exogenous technological progress and endogenous production experience effects.

Use Cases

• Analyze the correlation between production volume and unit costs to assess economies of scale during WWII.
• Model the relationship between cumulative production and technological progress as described in the study.
• Investigate the exogeneity of military demand and its impact on production and cost trends.

Strengths

• Described as an unprecedentedly large collection of data for this research context.
• Focuses on a period where demand for military products was largely exogenous, limiting reverse causality concerns.
• Data supports analysis of both production experience effects and exogenous technological progress.

Limitations

• Specific data structure, column names, row counts, and file formats are unknown.
• The dataset's scope is limited to U.S. military production during a specific historical period (World War II).
• As a replication package, it may be tailored to a specific econometric analysis, limiting generalizability.

Provenance

Source

ICPSR Harvested Dataverse, author François Lafond.

Collection Method

Replication package for the study 'Can Stimulating Demand Drive Costs Down? World War II as a Natural Experiment'.

Time Range

World War II era.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-02-23.

Geography

United States.