''The Three Trillion Dollar War'' is a 2008 book by

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

laureate

Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the Joh ...

and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Professor

Linda Bilmes Linda J. Bilmes (born 1960) holds the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer Chair in Public Policy and Public Finance at Harvard University. She is a full-time faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School where she teaches public policy, budget ...

, both of whom are American

economists An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...

Overview

The book examines the full cost of the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

, including many hidden costs. The book also discusses the extent to which these costs will be imposed for many years to come, paying special attention to the expenditures that will be required to care for wounded veterans. The authors conclude by illustrating the

opportunity cost In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a particular activity is the value or benefit given up by engaging in that activity, relative to engaging in an alternative activity. More effective it means if you chose one activity (for example ...

of the resources spent on waging the war. The book was a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and international best-seller and has been translated into 22 languages. The total cost of $3 trillion is comparable to that found in other studies. The

Joint Economic Committee The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) is one of four standing joint committees of the U.S. Congress. The committee was established as a part of the Employment Act of 1946, which deemed the committee responsible for reporting the current economic co ...

of Congress estimated that the war would cost $3.5 trillion, while the non-partisan

Congressional Budget Office The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress. Inspired by California's Legislative Analyst's Office that manages ...

projected that the total cost will reach between $1.4 and $2.2 trillion. The Stiglitz-Bilmes work builds on an earlier study by

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

economist

William Nordhaus William Dawbney Nordhaus (born May 31, 1941) is an American economist, a Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University, best known for his work in economic modeling and climate change, and one of the 2 recipients of the 2018 Nobel Memoria ...

, who predicted in 2002 that the war could reach $2 trillion if it went badly. Numerous economists, including

James K. Galbraith James Kenneth Galbraith (born January 29, 1952) is an American economist. He is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Senior Schol ...

of the

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and Nobel Laureate

Lawrence Klein Lawrence Robert Klein (September 14, 1920 – October 20, 2013) was an American economist. For his work in creating computer models to forecast economic trends in the field of econometrics in the Department of Economics at the University of Penn ...

have supported the methodology in the book. Economist Fred Foldvary also wrote a positive review of the book in ''Econ Journal Watch'' in 2008. He believes better knowledge of both the budgeted and implicit costs of the war as spelled out in the book will further a more coherent dialogue on present and future related policy matters. The Costs of War Project at Brown University has estimated the costs at that time as being even higher

Criticism

In a 2006 review, economist

Alan Krueger Alan Bennett Krueger (September 17, 1960 – March 16, 2019) was an American economist who was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served ...

argued the estimate was too high for three reasons. First, it counts future interest payments on the debt created by military spending as well as the direct expenditures, which is double counting. Second, it counts increased military recruitment costs that incorporate a premium for higher risk of death or injury and the direct cost of the deaths and injuries, which is also double counting. Third, it attributes a global increase in the price of oil entirely to the Iraq War. Other academics, including

John Lott John Richard Lott Jr. (born May 8, 1958) is an American economist, political commentator, and gun rights advocate. Lott was formerly employed at various academic institutions and at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank. He ...

, Richard Zerbe, and Edgar Browing, echoed those criticisms, and in addition challenged the

Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties ''The Lancet'', one of the oldest scientific medical journals in the world, published two peer-reviewed studies on the effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation on the Iraqi mortality rate. The first was published in 200 ...

to determine the number of Iraqi deaths.

References

External links

Radio interview of Stiglitz and transcript
about this book, May 29, 2009.
The Times Online: The three trillion dollar war
{{DEFAULTSORT:Three Trillion Dollar War, The 2008 non-fiction books Books about the 2003 invasion of Iraq Books about politics of the United States Current affairs books Economics books W. W. Norton & Company books Books by Joseph Stiglitz