IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/navres/v36y1989i5p533-557.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cost realism in defense contracting

Author

Listed:
  • K. T. Wallenius
  • N. K. Womer

Abstract

In this article we report and evaluate a technique developed by the U.S. Navy for the purpose of choosing winners of Research and Development (R&D) contracts from among several competing contractors. The technique is intended to discourage “buy‐in” bidding (i.e., submitting unrealistically low bids for the purpose of winning the bidding competition). We conclude that, within our decision scenario, the technique tends to induce bids that are close to the contractor's expectation of the government cost estimate. The article is descriptive (we discuss the scenario and an existing approach), prescriptive (we offer cost realism scoring rule admissibility requirements), and projective (we explore how admissible realism scoring rules should affect contractor behavior).

Suggested Citation

  • K. T. Wallenius & N. K. Womer, 1989. "Cost realism in defense contracting," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(5), pages 533-557, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:36:y:1989:i:5:p:533-557
    DOI: 10.1002/1520-6750(198910)36:53.0.CO;2-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6750(198910)36:53.0.CO;2-1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/1520-6750(198910)36:53.0.CO;2-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. Michael Cummins, 1977. "Incentive Contracting for National Defense: A Problem of Optimal Risk Sharing," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 8(1), pages 168-185, Spring.
    2. Willis R. Greer, Jr. & Shu S. Liao, 1986. "An Analysis of Risk and Return in the Defense Market: Its Impact on Weapon System Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(10), pages 1259-1273, October.
    3. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "On Value Maximization and Alternative Objectives of the Firm," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 389-402, May.
    4. Schall, Lawrence D, 1972. "Asset Valuation, Firm Investment, and Firm Diversification," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(1), pages 11-28, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nam, K. & Chaudhury, A. & Rao, H. Raghav, 1995. "A mixed integer model of bidding strategies for outsourcing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 257-273, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Perez-Castrillo, David & Riedinger, Nicolas, 2004. "Auditing cost overrun claims," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 267-285, June.
    2. William P. Rogerson, 1988. "Profit Regulation of Defense Contractors and Prizes for Innovation : Theory and Evidence," Discussion Papers 759, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    3. Robert A. Taggart, Jr., 1980. "Taxes and Corporate Capital Structure in an Incomplete Market," NBER Working Papers 0594, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Vettas, Nikolaos & Biglaiser, Gary, 2004. "Dynamic Price Competition with Capacity Constraints and Strategic Buyers," CEPR Discussion Papers 4315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Fanti, Luciano & Gori, Luca & Sodini, Mauro, 2012. "Nonlinear dynamics in a Cournot duopoly with relative profit delegation," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 45(12), pages 1469-1478.
    6. Hans‐Ulrich Küpper, 2009. "Investment‐Based Cost Accounting as a Fundamental Basis of Decision‐Oriented Management Accounting," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 45(2), pages 249-274, June.
    7. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2017. "The Revolution of Information Economics: The Past and the Future," NBER Working Papers 23780, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Tunay I. Tunca & Qiong Wu, 2009. "Multiple Sourcing and Procurement Process Selection with Bidding Events," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 763-780, May.
    9. Fanti, Luciano & Gori, Luca, 2011. "Stability analysis in a Cournot duopoly with managerial sales delegation and bounded rationality," MPRA Paper 33828, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Rajeev K. Goel, 1995. "Choosing the Sharing Rate for Incentive Contracts," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 39(2), pages 68-72, October.
    11. Emhjellen, Magne & Alaouze, Chris M., 2002. "Project valuation when there are two cashflow streams," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 455-467, September.
    12. Andreas Schüler, 2020. "Zur kapitalwertorientierten Bewertung (nicht nur) von immateriellen Vermögenswerten in der internationalen Rechnungslegung [On the Income-Approach (Not Only) to Value Intangible Assets According to," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 371-396, September.
    13. James J. Anton & Dennis A. Yao, 1990. "Measuring the effectiveness of competition in defense procurement: A survey of the empirical literature," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(1), pages 60-79.
    14. Jain, Tarun & Hazra, Jishnu & Cheng, T.C.E., 2018. "Sourcing under overconfident buyer and suppliers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 93-109.
    15. Douglas R. Emery & Wilbur G. Lewellen & David C. Mauer, 1988. "Tax-Timing Options, Leverage, And The Choice Of Corporate Form," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 11(2), pages 99-110, June.
    16. Bozeman, Dennis P. & Kacmar, K. Michele, 1997. "A Cybernetic Model of Impression Management Processes in Organizations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 9-30, January.
    17. Keen, Peter G. W., 1979. "Information systems and organizational change," Working papers 1087-79. Report (Alfred P, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    18. Bruce C. Greenwald & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1991. "Information, Finance, and Markets: The Architecture of Allocative Mechanisms," NBER Working Papers 3652, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Holmstrom, Bengt R. & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "The theory of the firm," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-133, Elsevier.
    20. Mukherjee, Rahul, 2015. "Institutions, Corporate Governance and Capital Flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 338-359.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:36:y:1989:i:5:p:533-557. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6750 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.