Critical Examination of Economic Research in Procurement: An Economic andMilitary Perspective

摘要

Efficiency in procurement has always been a popular topic among analysts at manydifferent levels and agencies. Over the years, a set of broad generalizations about the nature of the defense industry and the flaws of the acquisition process have developed and are widely taken as given in even the most rigorous economic analysis. These characterizations of the defense industry and the procurement process are examined critically. In addition I survey the economic literature in procurement. I find that much of the theoretical literature simply accepts the conventional wisdom about the defense business, thus adding a caveat to a great deal of the results obtained through sound economic analysis. I conclude that future research needs to focus more on defining the process and what drives behavior that has occurred for decades. Such normative analysis is necessary before any policy recommendations should be made. I suggest one approach is to do an empirical comparison between defense and private sector procurement of the same product in an effort define a specific problem before trying to solve it. This paper was done as a starting point for a future dissertation proposal.