Accession Number:
ADA582543
Title:
The Effect of Defense R&D Expenditures on Military Capability and Technological Spillover
Descriptive Note:
Master's thesis
Corporate Author:
AIR FORCE INST OF TECH WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB OH GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT
Personal Author(s):
Report Date:
2013-03-01
Pagination or Media Count:
86.0
Abstract:
Generally, the purpose of defense research and development RD is to expand military capability for the armed forces of a country. Any spin-off of technologies from defense RD programs is usually not a prime motivation but more often an unintended consequence. Nevertheless, many of the technologies used in civilian life were initially research and development projects for military purposes. These technologies eventually become adapted to civilian applications since they had beneficial economic and social spillover effects. However, there is a lack of research measuring the final outputs of defense RD, including technology spin-offs. This study mainly tried to understand the effect of defense RD expenditures on military capability and technological spillover. Statistical measures such as correlations were used to understand these effects. The study revealed that there is a highly positive correlation between defense RD expenditure and military capability, as well as between defense RD expenditure and technological spillover index. The study contributed to the academic literature in three ways by providing new measures of military capability, a new estimation method for defense RD expenditures, and a new method to measure technological spillover effect from defense RD expenditures.
Descriptors:
Subject Categories:
- Defense Systems
- Military Operations, Strategy and Tactics