How Many Jobs Were Lost as a Result of the U.S. Troop Withdrawal?

#ZEWPodcast How Many Jobs Were Lost as a Result of the U.S. Troop Withdrawal?

After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. withdrew approximately 200,000 soldiers from Germany within a few years. A joint study by the ZEW in Mannheim and the University of Cologne shows that this had significant and long-term economic consequences for the affected regions. For every U.S. soldier withdrawn, half a full-time job was lost in the vicinity of the respective base. Regional businesses and municipal budgets were also severely affected. In the new ZEW podcast “Wirklich Wirtschaft,” the study’s authors, Jakob Schmidhäuser and Johannes Kochems, discuss the consequences for employment, wages, and public finances, as well as the lessons to be learned for the recently announced reduction of U.S. troops in Germany.