The Soviet Union was able to develop a large military-industrial complex and become the world's second superpower despite deficiencies in its centrally planned economy because defence was given high priority status and special planning, rationing and administrative mechanisms were used to attain...

The production units of the military-industrial complex operate under the constraints imposed by the general context of the transformation of the socio-economic system in Russia. So conversion is closely linked to the global transformation: we are dealing with a process and an objective which...

The procurement of military systems may be used as a tool to achieve industrial objectives. Medium-sized industrialised countries have the choice of procuring foreign systems on the best economic terms available, or instead using defence procurement as a tool to build up domestic industrial and...

From the early 1980s Spain embarked on a wide-ranging process of military reform, from organisational changes to defence industrial policies. Investment in military equipment was set to grow, policies were drawn up to foster the domestic defence industrial base, defence R&D rocketed, and Spain...

This paper deals with the economic effects of the control systems for armament exports and civil-military technologies. It describes the institutional framework, taking into account its changes in conception and orientation which occurred due to the dissolution in 1994 of the COCOM and the...

The traditional view of the defence industry obtaining large profits from contracts with the Ministry of Defence relies on several assumptions. Among these are the use of such arrangements as an instrument of industrial policy, the strong market power enjoyed by prime contractors, and the...

Defence offsets rank as one of the most important and controversial topics within the broad field of defence economics. Arms vendors are likely to view offsetting investment as a distraction, fearful of its potential to hurt the bottom line. By contrast, policymakers in the arms purchasing...

Greece yearly allocates a substantial part of its national income to defence and its defence burden is the highest among EU and NATO members. To meet the demand for military hardware it relies almost exclusively on imports, ranking among the largest conventional arms importers in the world....

This paper analyses the extent and character of product innovation in defence technologies where there are strong network effects, but where there is not a generally accepted system of open standards. Specifically, we examine the implications for innovation from the development of...

As far as defence in Belgium is concerned, the post-war era can be subdivided in two: the Cold War period, and the period from 1989, which also coincides with a profound political reorganisation of the country. In the following pages, a brief overview of the restructuring attempts of the armed...