Abstract
This article focuses on the role of economic factors in explaining the outcomes of the two world wars. In both wars, the scale of resources mobilized was decisive, leaving little room for other factors that feature prominently in narrative accounts, such as national differences in war preparations, war leadership, military organization and morale. The economic advantage of the Allies was not just in size, but also in the quality of their resources, reflected in average real incomes per head of their populations before the wars. We also quantify the economic effects of the wars within a national balance sheet framework.
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Broadberry, S., Harrison, M. (2018). World Wars, Economics of. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2607
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2607
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