Measuring the Economic Effects of Military Base Closures

In this article, we use a newly constructed dataset to analyze the county‐level employment and personal income effects resulting from closures of military bases during 1971–94. Our estimated multipliers are mostly less than one, and considerably smaller than those typically used in economic impact studies. We find that the employment costs are mostly limited to the direct job loss associated with military transfers out of the region, and per capita income is little affected by closures on average.