Second Sourcing and the Experience Curve: Price Competition in Defense Procurement

James Anton () and Dennis A. Yao

RAND Journal of Economics, 1987, vol. 18, issue 1, 57-76

Abstract: We examine a dynamic model of price competition in defense procurement that incorporates the experience curve, asymmetric cost information, and the availability of a higher cost alternative system. We model acquisition as a two-stage process in which initial production is governed by a contract between the government and the developer. Competition is then introduced by an auction in which a second source bids against the developer for remaining production. We characterize the class of production contracts that are cost minimizing for the government and that induce the developer to reveal private cost information. When high costs are revealed, these contracts result in a credible cutoff of new system production in favor of the still higher cost alternative system.

Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261%2819872 ... O%3B2-Y&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rje:randje:v:18:y:1987:i:spring:p:57-76

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://editorialexp ... i-bin/rje_online.cgi

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in RAND Journal of Economics from The RAND Corporation
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().