Visible Costs and Invisible Benefits: Military Procurement as Innovation Policy

Description

This book examines the historic role of professional and demanding military customers in industrial development. Particular emphasis is paid to public procurement of military equipment as a catalyst for innovation; and the civilian commercialization of military technologies (from gunpowder and cannons to submarines, missiles and aircraft) is documented by many case illustrations that show how macro-level productivity advance has been generated. A complementary volume to Advancing Public Procurement as Industrial Policy (2010), which focused on the spillover effects of the Swedish combat aircraft, Gripen, in this book Gunnar Eliasson widens the perspective to cover product development across the Swedish defense industry, with an emphasis on regional economic development and macro-economics, inter alia through the involvement of Saab (aircraft) and Kockums (submarines) in partnership ventures in Australia, Norway and Brazil. The volume is organized into four parts. Part one examines the historical transformation of the Swedish economy over the past three centuries from agriculture and raw materials to an advanced industrial economy. Part two presents detailed case studies to illustrate the spillover effects of procurement projects and military-industrial partnerships. Part three explains the spillover phenomenon theoretically within a dynamic micro- to macro-economic perspective. Particular emphasis is placed on the empirical credibility of model-based economy-wide and dynamic cost-benefit calculations. The book concludes with a section on fostering industrial development through public procurement. The result is a book that will appeal to economists in the industrial economics and management fields; to technical, marketing and purchasing executives in business; and to policy makers in public procurement concerned with innovation and long-run industrial development. Front Matter ....Pages i-xlvii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Background, Problems Addressed, and Economic Political Context (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 3-15 The Role of the Competent and Demanding Customer and Technological Product Competition in Industrial Evolution: A Historic Perspective (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 17-29 Public Procurement of Public Goods as Innovation Policy: The Cloud of New Technologies Around Military Product Development (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 31-45 Front Matter ....Pages 47-47 The Swedish Military Aircraft Industry: The Development, Upgrading, Modernization, and Exporting of the Gripen Combat Aircraft (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 49-85 Weapons Development and Civilian Technology Creation (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 87-109 The Linköping, Karlskoga, and Gothenburg New Industrial Competence Blocs (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 111-126 Military Vehicles on Land and at Sea: The Experimental Dynamics of the Örnsköldsvik Industrial Region in Northern Sweden (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 127-134 Worker and Engineer Learning on the Australian Collins Submarine Project: Human Capital Spillovers and the Case of Swedish Kockums in Australia (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 135-171 Industrial Competence Bloc Formation Around Submarine Design, Development, and Manufacturing (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 173-223 Indigenous Development or Buying Off-the-Shelf (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 225-241 Front Matter ....Pages 243-246 Competition, Industrial Competence Bloc Formation, and the Evolution of an Experimentally Organized Economy: Commercialization Theory (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 247-279 Public Procurement of Privately Demanded Public Goods as Innovation Policy: Turning Dynamic Externalities into Social Value (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 281-289 Theories, Choice of Models, and Estimation Methods: The Problem of Empirical Credibility (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 291-364 Economy-Wide, Long-Run Model-Based Social Cost-Benefit Calculations (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 365-379 Front Matter ....Pages 381-383 Political Economics (Gunnar Eliasson)....Pages 385-404 Back Matter ....Pages 405-461