Efficiency of the Korean defense industry: A stochastic frontier approach

Abstract

The defense market, which is composed of a sole demander and few suppliers, is generally regarded as a monopolistic market. In this sense, it has its own characteristics that are different from other common competitive markets. High precision technology and a huge amount of capital investment in the initial stage of production are essential in the defense industry, and this necessitates subsidy policy of the government. Most of the supplies are produced in an order-based manner due to the special specification requirements and this hampers the market-driven pricing mechanism. The price is determined based on negotiations between the two parties, considering the cost of production, retrieval of the investment, and efficient allocation of the government budget. This study is organized as follows. The history of the Korean defense industry and policies are summarized in Sect. 10.2. The data is described in Sect 10.3. In Sect 10.4, this study sets out the stochastic frontier production function for the analysis of efficiency and the model for decomposition of TFP. The results of the estimation of the stochastic frontier model are presented in Sect 10.5, where technical efficiency, testing results on factors affecting efficiency and decomposition of TFP are discussed. Lastly, Sect 10.6 presents the conclusions of this study. © 2009 Physica-Verlag Heidelberg.