This paper assesses the causal relationship between POW assignments and labor productivity for a vital sector of the German World War I economy, namely coal mining. Prisoners of war (POWs) provided significant labor. Combining data on all Ruhr mines with a treatment-effects approach, I find that POW employment alone accounted for 36 percent of the average POW-employing mine’s annual productivity decline over wartime. Estimates also suggest that the representative POW’s productivity averaged 32 percent of the representative regular miner’s productivity and that POWs’ contribution to wartime coal output amounted to 3.9 percent. Violence did not serve as a powerful work incentive.

中文翻译：

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战争、煤炭和强迫劳动：评估一战德国战俘就业对煤矿生产力的影响

本文评估了德国第一次世界大战经济的一个重要部门，即煤炭开采，战俘分配与劳动生产率之间的因果关系。战俘（POW）提供了大量劳动力。将所有鲁尔矿山的数据与处理效果方法相结合，我发现仅战俘就业就占战时平均战俘就业矿山年生产力下降的 36%。估计还表明，代表性战俘的生产力平均为代表性普通矿工生产力的 32%，战时对战时煤炭产量的贡献为 3.9%。暴力并没有成为强有力的工作激励。