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War, Coal, and Forced Labor: Assessing the Impact of Prisoner-of-War Employment on Coal Mine Productivity in World War I Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2021

Tobias A. Jopp
Tobias A. Jopp*
Affiliation:
Tobias A. Jopp is Senior Assistant Professor, University of Regensburg, Department of History, Economic and Social History, 93040Regensburg. E-mail: Tobias.Jopp@geschichte.uni-regensburg.de.
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Abstract

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.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 763 - 791
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2021

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Mark Spoerer, Michael Buchner, and the participants in the Research Seminar in Economic History at the University of Regensburg (winter term 2017/18) as well as in the session on Human Capital as part of the 43rd Annual Economic and Business History Society Conference (2018) for suggestions on the first draft. I am also deeply indebted to three anonymous referees and the editor who offered invaluable advice and suggestions for improvement.

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