The history of international competition shows long cycles in country leadership. This paper argues that these cycles can be explained by differences in country capabilities, in terms of both technologies and organizing principles, which diffuse more slowly across than within national and regional borders. The country that innovates in best practices eventually loses leadership, but not before increasing its wealth and claims on foreign assets and investments.

Country capabilities and the permeability of borders

This paper describes some of the insights that the economic theory of incentives can contribute to defense procurement policy analysis. It describes the underlying incentive problems that shape the defense procurement problem, the nature of current institutions and how they affect actors' behavior, and possible directions for improving the procurement process suggested by viewing it as a solution to a complex set of incentive problems. Incentive problems between government and defense firms and incentive problems within government are both considered.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.8.4.65

Economic Incentives and the Defense Procurement Process

Exploiting a technical edge : voluntary and involuntary dissemination of technology

:While in the last 20 years a large number of frameworks have been presented in literature, currently there is no consensus on how to define Lean Product Development (PD) We used content analysis to investigate existing approaches and integrated them into a single, coherent framework consisting of 11 Lean PD components To better understand the nature of the novel definition of Lean PD, we conducted a theoretical investigation of the component interdependencies We hypothesize that Lean PD needs to be understood as a system of highly interwoven components that only in their concurrency lead to high performance in PD

/pdf/a-framework-for-organizing-lean-product-development-22cqx9em38.pdf

A Framework for Organizing Lean Product Development

The scope given to cultural phenomena in organizational analysis has been growing but little conceptual integration has taken place. In this paper, a cultural analysis of organizational phenomena is developed using a conceptual framework that throws new light on the Markets and Hierarchies debate. In particular, it is shown that a choice between markets and hierarchies does not reduce to a choice between external and internal transactions. The framework is introduced and developed in sections one and two for the general case and is applied to the modern corporation in section three. The implications of the analysis are discussed in section four.

Markets and Hierarchies in a Cultural Perspective

: The paper examines the circumstances that led to Japanese production of four U.S.-designed aircraft during the 1950's and 1960's, the flows of requisite technology and other goods and services, and the costs of transferring the technology. The history of this experience is instructive about the process and costs of one country's acquiring a sophisticated technical capability from another. Perhaps even more significant is a methodological implication to be derived from this study and others like it: that international flows of technology can be studied profitably by means of conventional market-force analysis. Such an approach can illuminate a number of the dark corners of economics and dispel some of the mystery concerning technology and economic change. (Author)

/pdf/transfers-of-united-states-aerospace-technology-to-japan-44tjieperg.pdf

Transfers of united states aerospace technology to japan

Transfers of United States Aerospace Technology to Japan

: An analysis of the co-production in 1955-1964 of four U.S. military aircraft--the T-33A, P2V-7, F-86F, and F-104J--by Japanese firms. The process of transferring the required manufacturing technology is examined. For the F-104J the costs of transfer are also analyzed. These costs were lower than expected--sufficiently so, that when combined with Japan's labor-cost advantage, the Japanese-built F-104Js cost at least 10 percent less than Lockheed's likely selling price. Co-production's aid to the development of Japan's aviation industry and to making the acquisition of military aircraft politically feasible has important implications for foreign aid policy. Co-production also suggests that conventional views about the costs and benefits of reprocuring weapon systems only from the developer may be erroneous. A policy of separating programs for contracting purposes could greatly expand the role of competition and reliance on market-generated prices in weapon system procurement. The benefits of such a policy could be substantial. (Author)

Aircraft co-production and procurement strategy,

: A major issue in defense procurement is how to obtain price competition for the specialized military goods and services. A corollary issue is how to protect the public interest in procurements where competition cannot be relied upon for protection. This paper will briefly consider both issues as they emerge in the procurement of specialized hard goods. Attention is focused on hard goods for two reasons. First, competition is relatively prevalent in the soft goods area, except for R and D services. Second, although research and development is largely noncompetitive, the barriers to competition here are so severe that the prospects for significant increases in price rivalry are not encouraging. For hard goods, however, competition is relatively scarce, yet there appear to be feasible methods for obtaining significant increases in price rivalry.

/pdf/competition-in-the-procurement-of-military-hard-goods-j4w5khr9jp.pdf

Competition in the Procurement of Military Hard Goods

: The Memorandum considers the rationale for public regulation of subcontracting, analyzes current subcontracting policy, and suggests changes in current policy. The need for subcontracting regulation in the acquisition of weapon systems depends on the method used to select a prime contractor and the type of contract between the prime contractor and the Government. For all contracts let without effective price competition -these include but are not limited to all cost types of contracts -- the Government should be concerned with decisions both about which items to subcontract and which firms are to receive the subcontracts. Such regulation is needed because prime contractors lack the motivation to minimize target costs. The need for public concern about subcontracting is brought out by an examination of the C-141 program, which has a number of atypical features. The most interesting aspect is the extensive use of competitive bidding to choose subcontractors, which demonstrates the feasibility of extensive price rivalry.

/pdf/public-policy-toward-subcontracting-2jmhrhwikt.pdf

R. E. Johnson

Papers

Transfers of united states aerospace technology to japan

Transfers of United States Aerospace Technology to Japan

Aircraft co-production and procurement strategy,

Competition in the Procurement of Military Hard Goods

Public policy toward subcontracting