Human resource management in the armed forces: An investigation into the monetary incentive systems for military personnel

How do the armed forces pay and compensate military personnel? In this article, this question is addressed by investigating the monetary incentive systems in place in the armed forces in twelve NATO and NATO-partner countries. The primary objective is to understand how the armed forces, in a variety of advanced countries, structure their compensation and personnel policies. The countries’ monetary incentive systems are analyzed and compared using a Request for Information distributed by the Norwegian Ministry of Defence to NATO and NATO-partner countries. The secondary objective is to motivate the research community in the nexus between personnel economics and defense economics to study monetary incentives in the armed forces in a cross-national perspective. There is great potential to learn from the experiences of compensation policies in other armed forces.